CHURCH  HISTORY 


IDE   "V^ITT 


BR 

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138 

.D52 

1883 

I^^^^^^^Hr"' ' "  ^'^^ 

C.S.3 

^^                          PRINCETON,  N.  J.           \^ 

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BR  138  .D52  1883 
De  Witt,  John,  1842-1923. 
Church  history  as  a  science 
as  a  theological 

■ 

CHURCH   HISTORY 

AS  A  SCIENCE, 

AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  DISCIPLINE, 

AND 

AS  A  MODE  OF  THE  GOSPEL. 


AN    INAUGURAL    DISCOURSE 


DELIVERED    liV    THE 


REV.  JOHN  DE  WITT,    D.  D. 


Occasion   of    His   Induciiont   into  the   Chair  qf   Hisiory   in 
Lane   Theological   Seminary. 


Cincinnati,  Ohio,  May  8th,  ISSS. 


CINCINNATI: 

Elm  Street  Printing  Company,  Nos.   176  and  178  Elm  Street. 
18S3. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/churchhistoryassOOdewi 


INAUGURAL  DISCOURSE. 


Gentlemen  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Lane  Theological 
Seminary: 

The  first  duty,  which  the  occasion  calls  me  to  discharge,  is 
the  duty  of  expressing  gratefully  my  sense  of  the  high  honor 
which  you  have  conferred  upon  me,  in  inviting  me  to  the 
Chair  of  History  in  this  school  of  sacred  learning.  I  need 
not  say  tiiat  my  sense  of  this  honor  is  made  livelier  by  the 
reflection,  that  I  succeed  one  so  highly  and  so  justly  esteemed 
as  was  the  late  Dr.  Zephaniah  Moore   Humphrey.*      My  life 


'■'Zephaniah  Moore  Humphrey,  the  youngest  son  of  President  Heman  Hum- 
phrey, of  Amherst  College,  was  born  August  29,  1824.  He  was  graduated 
at  Amherst  College  in  1843,  ^"f^  ^^  Andover  Theological  Seminary  in  1849. 
He  was  pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Racine,  Wis.,  1850- 
1856;  of  Plymouth  Congregational  Church,  Milwaukee,  1856-1859 ;  of 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Chicago,  1859-68;  of  Calvary  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Philadelphia,  1868-1875.  The  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity  was 
conferred  on  him  in  1865  by  Amherst  College,  Mass.,  and  Knox  College,  111. 
He  was  Moderator  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1871.  He  was  Professor  of 
Church  History,  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  from  1875  until  his  death, 
which  took  place  November  13,  1881.  The  Rev.  Dr.  R.  W.  Patterson,  in 
the  memorial  sermon  before  the  Alumni  of  Lane  Seminary,  referring  to  Dr. 
Humphrey  as  a  teacher,  says:  "With  facility  of  illustration  and  the  power 
of  grouping  facts  in  their  philosophical  relations,  he  never  failed  to  carry  his 
students  with  him,  in  the  historical  fields  which  it  was  needful  he  should 
traverse,  in  drawing  comprehensive  pictures  of  God's  dispensations  toward 
his  people  in  the  earlier  and  later  ages.  It  will  continue  a  blessing  to  our 
churches  through  long  years  that  so  many  of  our  young  ministers  fell  under 
the  influence  and  guidance  of  Dr.  Humphrey  during  the  six  years  of  his 
industrious  discharge  of  his  duties  as  Professor  of  Church  History  in  Lane 
Seminary."     In   another  connection   in   the   same   discourse,    Dr.    Patterson 


4  INAUGURAL    DISCOURSE INTRODUCTION. 

as  a  Pastor  in  Philadelphia  began  not  long  after  Dr.  Hum- 
phrey had  accepted  your  invitation  to  become  Professor  of 
Church  History.  His  exceptional  ability,  his  large  and  varied 
culture,  and  the  charming  grace  of  character  and  life  with 
which,  in  that  city,  he  adorned  the  office  of  Christian  Pastor, 
enabled  him  to  exert  a  large  and  beneficent  influence,  both 
as  a  citizen  and  as  a  Churchman.  The  universal  regret,  with 
which  his  decision  to  leave  that  important  field  of  labor  was 
received,  prepared  those  even  who  did  not  know  him  well,  for 
the  far  deeper  sorrow  of  many  hearts  in  many  States,  when 
your  message  was  received,  that  God  had  called  him  from  his 
earthly  labor  to  his  heavenly  reward.  To  the  depth  of  this 
sorrow  you  have  already  testified.  To  the  fact  that  it  was 
wide-spread  no  testimony  is  needed.      The  event  is  too  recent 

says:  "  From  the  first  mention  of  his  name  in  connection  with  the  professor- 
ship of  ecclesiastical  History,  the  suggestion  was  widely  approved  in  the 
Church;  for  his  peculiar  fitness  for  the  position  was  immediately  recognized 
by  his  brethren  in  all  directions.  His  general  learning,  his  studious  habits, 
his  fondness  for  historical  pursuits,  his  known  capacity  of  grasping  facts  in 
their  philosophical  connections,  and,  above  all,  his  insight  into  the  working 
of  moral  and  spiritu«.l  influences  in  the  development  of  Christian  doctrine 
and  church  life,  singled  him  out  as  the  right  man  to  lead  our  candid.ites  for 
the  ministry  in  this  school  of  the  prophets  through  the  annals  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Christian  ages,  and  imbue  them  with  the  spirit  of  thorough  researcli  in 
his  chosen  department.  It  is  the  great  value  of  ecclesiastical  history  to  our 
ministry  to  give  them  a  knowledge  of  God's  providence  toward  his  people,  to 
balance  and  broaden  their  views  of  religious  opinion,  and  to  enable  them  to 
di'stinguish  between  the  transient  and  the  permanent  in  the  doctrines  and 
spiritual  forces  of  the  Church.  Dr.  Humphrey  was  the  very  teacher  to  in- 
culcate and  impress  these  lessons  upon  the  minds  of  our  theological  students. 
From  the  beginning  onward  he  traced  the  streams  of  influence  that  have 
made  the  Church  what  she  is,  and  filled  the  minds  of  his  classes  with  the  true 
historic  spririt  far  enough  to  prepare  them  to  pursue  the  paths  of  useful  in- 
quiry, into  which  he  had  guided  them,  through  aJl  the  studies  of  their  later 
lives." 


INAUGURAL    DISCOURSE — INTRODUCTION.  5 

for  US  to  have  forgotten  it.  "We  might  know,"  wrote  the 
honored  Pastor  who  succeeds  Dr.  Humphrey  in  the  pulpit  of 
Calvary  Church,  "We  might  know  that  a  Prince  has  fallen 
by  the  universal  expression  of  regret  and  affectionate  regard. 
The  tree  indicates  its  magnitude  and  weight  when  the  echoes 
of  its  fall  fill  the  forest."*  The  act  of  God  which  removes 
such  a  man  just  at  the  time  when  his  usefulness  is  the  largest, 
and  "  when,"  to  quote  your  own  words,  "the  promise  seems 
o-iven  of  a  long  period  of  successful  labor  on  his  part,"  is 
deeply  afflicting  and  mysterious.  But  we  are  justified  in 
believing — and  the  belief  is  our  highest  consolation — that  the 
powers  with  which  God  endowed  His  servant,  and  which,  by 
His  providence  and  grace,  He  nurtured  and  disciplined  for 
service  so  effective  and  distinguished,  ai'e  not  lost  to  the 
eternal  kingdom  of  God.  "Because  thou  hast  been  faithful 
over  a  few  tilings,  I  will  make  thee  ruler  over  many  things. 
Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord."  May  God  grant  to 
me  his  successor, — ^may  God  grant  to  us  all, — the  devotion 
always  manifested  by  Dr.  Humphrey  to  Him  who  is  the 
central  figure,  and  whose  glory  is  the  final  cause  of  all 
History ! 

You  have  invited  me  to  teach  Church  History ;  to  teach 
it  as  a  branch  of  theological  study ;  to  teach  it  to  those  who 
are  to  become  preachers  of  the  Gospel.  In  these  three 
elements  of  the  call  I  have  acceptecf,  I  find  a  not  inappropri- 
ate theme  for  an  inaugural  address.  I  shall  speak  of  Church 
FTistoiy — as  a  science,  as  a  theological  discipline,  and  as  a  mode 
of  the  Gospel. 

*The  Rev.  Charles  A.  Dickey,  D.  D. 


6  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

(l.)    CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

In  endeavoring  briefly  to  present  the  idea  of  Church  His- 
tory, permit  me  to  recall  to  your  attention  some  obvious 
distinctions.  As  all  of  us  know,  there  is  a  general  sense  and 
there  is  a  special  sense  in  which  this  great  word.  History,  is 
employed  in  our  language.*  Sometimes  it  is  used  to  designate 
a  narrative  of  events,  to  whatever  class  or  classes  the  events 
may  belong.  But  in  a  special  sense,  it  designates  a  narrative 
of  those  events  alone,  of  which  man  is  one,  at  least,  of  the 
causes. 

There  is  good  ground  for  this  distinction.  For  events  in 
whose  production  man  has  no  active  share  are,  in  their  nature, 
wide  apart  from  those  to  which  he  sustains  the  relation  of  a 
cause.  Below  man  lie  the  regions  of  necessity.  The  second 
causes  of  events  which  occur  in  inorganic  matter,  and  even  in 
the  brute  creation,  are  absolutely  involuntary.  The  story  of 
the  changes  even  in  unorganized  matter  is,  indeed,  a  profoundly 
impressive  narrative.  To  the  History  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
belongs  a  majesty,  derived  from  the  majesty  of  the  movements 
of  these  suns  and  systems  themselves.     Although  too  vast 


*I  say  "in  our  language."  Primarily,  in  English,  the  word  History  designates 
p  narrative.  Only  secondarily  does  it  designate  the  events  narrated.  Dr. 
Schaff,  in  his  History  of  the  Apostolic  <  'hurch,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
in  German  the  primary  reference  is  to  the  events,  and  only  the  secondary 
reference  to  the  narrative;  the  word  Geschichte  being  derived  from  geschclien, 
to  happen  (p.  2).  The  difference  in  the  primary  meaning  of  the  two  words 
prepares  one  for  the  broad  difference  between  the  English  and  the  German 
Church  Histories.  The  English  Church  Historians  have  regarded  History 
as  primarily  a  belles  lettres  product,  the  product  of  the  art  of  narrative.  The 
German  Church  Historians  have  regarded  History  as  primarily  the  science 
of  events.  Dean  Milman's  volumes  on  Christianity  and  Latin  Christianity, 
and  Neander's  Church  History,  well  represent  the  two  points  of  view,  and 
well  illustrate  the  merits  and  defects  of  both. 


CHURCH    HTSTORY    AS    A    SCIF.NCE.  7 

for  the  senses  to  apprehend  it,  yet  because  the  visible  uni- 
verse is  reduced  to  order  and  unity  by  means  of  pervasive 
law,  Emanuel  Kant  found  in  the  starry  heavens  the  highest 
example  of  the  material  sublime. 

But  to  him  who  reads  it  aright,  more  impressive  than  the 
History  of  the  heavens  above  us  is  the  History  of  the  vege- 
table world,  in  whose  awaking  from  the  sleep  of  winter  the 
hills  and  valleys  now  rejoice  on  every  side.  For  this  History 
is  the  narrative  of  the  energetic  movement  of  life.  We  are 
brought  into  the  presence  of  a  power — not,  indeed,  so  per- 
vasive as  the  laws  that  constitute  the  inorganic  universe  a 
harmonious  whole,— but  a  power  immeasurably  higher  in  kind. 
For  life  not  only  employs,  but,  within  the  limits  of  its  body, 
dominates  and  overrides  the  laws  of  matter.  If  thus  effects 
between  itself  and  the  matter  which  it  organizes,  a  relation 
far  higher  than  that  between  matter  and  laws  of  matter. 
Its  simplest  product  thus  becomes  a  nobler  product  than  sun 
or  system.  For  the  laws  of  matter  are  but  the  properties  of 
matter;  but  life  is  an  active  principle.  It  is  enthroned 
within  the  matter  which  it  organizes.  It  gives  to  matter  not 
only  form,  but  individual  character.  Working  from  within 
outwardly,  it  constitutes  out  of  heterogeneous  elements  a 
ujiity— a  unity  whose  identity  is  in  no  mere  sameness  of  form 
or  material,  but  in  the  abiding  life  itself;  a  unity  of  which 
the  parts  labor  each  for  the  other.  Moreover,  to  the  product 
of  life  belongs  a  quasi  immortality.  For  it  lives  in  its  descend- 
ants in  generation  and  generation.  Thus  the  History  of  the 
humblest  and  most  evanescent  flower  is  the  History  of  a 
higher  movement  than  the  movement  of  the  ancient  stars. 


0  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

But  there  is  a  higher  movement  than  the  movement  of  life. 
Passing  over  from  the  vegetable  to  the  brute  creation,  we 
find  ourselves  in  a  world  of  organisms,  the  activities  of  which 
are  controlled  by  new  powers.  I  do  not  stop  to  dwell  on 
the  more  complex  organization  of  the  individuals  of  the  brute 
creation  and  their  positive  power  of  locomotion.  These, 
after  all,  are  not  the  traits  which  indicate  the  impassable 
gulf  between  the  brute  and  the  vegetable  worlds.  That  gulf 
is  indicated  by  the  presence  of  consciousness,  of  instinctive 
impulses,  of  understanding*  to  which  the  instinctive  impulses 
give  the  regulating  law,  and  of  a  faculty  by  which  the  judg- 
ments of  the  understanding  are  executed.  The  story  of 
animal  life  derives  from  the  presence  of  these  new  powers  a 
dignity  which  can  never  belong  to  the  story  of  the  vegetable 
world. 

The  movements  in  each  of  these  worlds  become  the  sub- 
jects of  History.  The  idea  which  in  each  case  should  organize 
the  History  is  obvious.  In  the  History  of  inorganic  matter, 
the  organizing  idea  is  /aw ;  in  the  History  of  the  vegetable 
world  it  is  kye ;  in  the  History  of  the  brute  creation  it  is 
conscious  life,  obedient  to  instinctive  impulse  and  the  judgments 


®Of  course  the  term  understanding  is  here  employed  in  the  sense  in  which 
it  is  used  when  distinguished,  on  the  one  hand,  from  the  Reason,  the  regu- 
lative faculty  in  man,  and, 'on  the  other,  from  Instinct,  the  regulative  faculty 
in  the  brute;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  used  to  designate  the  faculty  "  which  judges 
according  to  sense."  Such  a  faculty,  as  is  obvious  enough,  the  brute 
possesses  in  common  with  man.  Whether  understanding  is  ideally  the  best 
word  by  which  to  designate  the  faculty  may  be  a  question.  As  discursive 
simply,  it  is  not  its  own  uUin)ate  law.  This  law,  it  derives  in  the  brute  from 
Instinct,  and  in  man  from  the  faculty  of  universal  and  necessary  truths,  or 
the  Reason.  And  here  is  to  be  found  the  profound  difference  between  the 
intellectual  life  of  man  and  the  intelligence  of  the  brute. 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  9 

of  the  understanding.  For  these  designate  the  causes  of  the 
historical  events  in  the  several  kingdoms. 

But,  while  the  Histories  of  these  kingdoms  must  differ 
widely  among  themselves,  they  have  one  feature  that  binds 
them  in  a  single  class.  All  have  impressed  upon  them  the 
trait  of  an  absolute  )iecessity.  In  every  case,  interesting 
and  impressive  as  the  History  may  be,  it  is  the  narrative  of 
involuntary  action.  And,  therefore,  while  we  bow  before 
the  mysteries  of  pervasive  law  or  of  dominating  life,  or  the 
higher  mystery  still  of  conscious  life,  we  feel  that  the  loftiest 
dignity  and  the  consummate  charm  with  which  History  may 
be  invested  are  wanting.  Our  own  consciousness  of  freedom 
in  action  reveals  to  us  that  there  must  be  another  History — 
the  History  of  man — not  only  immeasurably  higher  in  dignity, 
but  distinct  in  kind,  because  the  idea  that  organizes  it  can 
not  be  brought  under  the  category  of  necessity.  Thus  it  is, 
that  our  consciousness  of  freedofn  leads  us,  and  leads  us 
wisely,  to  employ  the  term  History  in  a  specific  sense, — which 
after  all  is  its  proper  sense, — as  the  narrative  of  that  free,  that 
self-determined  activity,  which  can  be  affirmed  of  man  alone 
among  the  creatures  on  the  planet. 

Indeed,  so  all-compelling  is  this  consciousness  of  freedom 
in  its  demand  that  voluntary  activity  shall  be  the  organizing 
idea  of  History,  that  the  intellect  refuses  to  contemplate  even 
the  Histories  of  the  kingdoms  below  man  as  narratives  of 
necessary  action  alone.  It  is  a  true  psychology  that  speaks 
in  the  line  of  poetry : 

"The  undevout  astronomer  is  mad.  " 


lO  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

The  mind  of  the  race  in  all  ages  has  failed  to  find  repose  in 
the  study  of  the  mere  material  laws  of  the  stellar  world  ;  and 
in  this  failure  it  has  simply  been  true  to  its  constitution. 
That  constitution  forbids  the  mind,  in  its  search  after  an 
ultimate  cause,  to  stop  at  force  or  law.  It  compels  the  mind 
to  regard  all  causes  as  themselves  effects  until  it  finds  a  cause, 
that  is  Will  and  adequate  Intelligence.  Such  a  cause  the 
mind,  when  true  to  its  constitution,  always  does  find.  "  For 
the  invisible  things  of  God  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made, 
even  His  eternal  power  and  God-head."  Thus  it  is  that  the 
heavens  have  ever  been  telling  to  man  the  glory,  the  presence 
and  the  activity  of  the  living  and  voluntary  Deity. 

We  need  recall  only  the  most  recent  philosophical  discus- 
sions, in  order  to  learn  that  man  instinctively  looks  for  freedom 
in  the  ultimate  cause  of  even  necessary  events.  What  is  it  that 
has  given  an  interest  so  intense  and  painful  to  the  long  debate 
on  Evolution?  The  cause  of  the  highest  intereijt  felt  in  that 
debate  is  not  in  the  question,  whether  this  or  that  species  is 
separated  from  every  other  by  a  boundary  so  deep  and  wide 
that  it  can  not  be  passed  ;  but  in  the  deeper  question — which, 
as  all  of  us  know,  the  debate  has  raised — whether,  as  we 
study  the  world  of  nature,  we  must  banish  from  our  minds, 
as  without  foundation,  the  world's  belief  in  final  cause  ;  in 
Intelligence  and  Will,  as  the  fountain  and  origin  of  the  teem- 
ing forms  of  life  about  us. 

Man,  then,  is  compelled  by  the  constitution  of  his  mind  to 
regard  the  History  even  of  necessary  action  as  ultimately  the 
narrative  of  voluntary  causation.      But  this  also  is  true.      He 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  II 

recognizes  the  voluntary  cause  as  zvithont  and  distinct  from  the 
activity  which  the  History  narrates.  The  Will  of  God,  if  I 
may  so  say,  goes  out  from  Himself  in  providence,  to  produce 
through  law  and  life  the  changes  which,  as  beheld  by  us,  are 
involuntary.  The  student  of  Natural  History  does  not  reach 
the  attributes  of  freedom  and  morality  until — ceasing  to  move 
backward  by  the  long  chain  of  causes  which,  because  neces- 
sary, are  also  effects — his  mind  leaps  upward  out  of  the  kingdom 
of  nature,  and  rests  in  the  thought  of  the  living,  free  and  holy 
Creator  and  Governor,  who,  by  His  providence,  is  present 
and  powerful  at  every  point  of  the  History. 

Now,  it  is  the  distinctive  glory  of  man,  that  the  mind  is 
not  compelled,  in  contemplating  his  History,  to  move  be- 
yond man  himself  in  the  search  after  voluntary  causation. 
As  I  shall  hope,  at  a  later  point,  to  make  clear,  I  am  by  no 
means  endeavoring  to  banish  the  thought  of  God  from  human 
History.  Rut,  at  this  point,  and  for  the  purpose  of  making 
more  clear  hereafter  the  precise  relation  of  God  to  human 
History,  it  is  important  to  insist,  that  it  is  the  distinction  of 
the  History  of  man,  that  it  is  the  narrative  of  activities  whose 
causes,  ivithiu  the  race,  are  "  unforced  and  self-moved  Will."* 
In  studying  this  History,  we  find  ourselves  not  merely  in  a 
world  of  conscious  life,  of  impulses  and  of  understanding, 
but  in  the  world  of  spirit  and  moral  relations.  Every  leaf  of 
this  History,  however  humble  the  acts  it  records,  belongs  to 
the  awful  and  sublime  drama  of  good  and  evil,  of  right  and 
wrong.      Let  it  be  but  the  History  of  a  single  soul;  there  still 


*Will  is  here   used  to  designate  not  the  mere  faculty  of  volitions,  but  the 
whole  voluntary  nature. 


12  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

attaches  to  it  the  dignity  of  the  active  Hfe  of  the  image  of  the 
hving,  free  and  holy  God,  in  the  world  in  which  he  is  not 
only  a  cause,  but,  aside  from  God,  the  chief  of  causes;  in 
which  he  "has  been  given  dominion;"  in  which  the  forms 
of  inorganic  matter  and  the  forms  both  of  unconscious  and  of 
conscious  life  are  the  theater  and  the  instruments  of  his  free 
activity,  as  well  as  the  subjects  of  his  rule.  The  term 
History  is  employed  in  its  special  and  proper  sense,  only 
when  it  is  employed  to  designate  the  narrative  of  this  free 
activity  of  man.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  we  employ  it  when 
we  say,  that  "  History  became  possible  only  when  man  began 
to  act."  As  a  science,  therefore,  the  distinctive  idea  which 
its  narrative  must  unfold  and  display  is  not  law  or  life,  or 
even  conscious  life,  but  man  as  a  rational  and  voluntary  and, 
therefore,  a  moral  cause. 

Since  this  is  the  high  theme  of  History,  it  is  obvious  that 
its  narrative  must  move  from  cause  to  effect,  and  not  simply 
from  century  to  century.  Primarily  it  must  be  determined 
by  the  idea  of  cause,  and  subordinately  only  by  the  idea  of 
time.  Its  formula  is  proptei'  hoc  rather  than  post  hoc.  It 
must  be  not  only  a  sequacious,  but  a  consequential  narrative. 
A  History,  therefore,  is  a  far  higher  and  profoundcr  literary 
product  than  a  Chronicle.  There  is,  indeed,  a  peculiar 
fascination  that  belongs  to  vivid  and  picturesque  Chronicles, 
like  those  of  Herodotus  or  Froissart,  which  we  shall  look  for 
in  vain  in  Histories  like  that  of  Thucydides,  who,  before  he 
proceeds  to  the  narrative,  compels  his  reader  to  study  a  labored 
dissertation  on  the  historical  causes  of  the  Peloponnesian  war. 
On  the  pages  of  Herodotus  or  of  the  parish  priest  of  Les- 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  I3 

tines,  actions  follow  one  upon  another  just  as — to  use  what, 
in  this  connection,  is  a  most  expressive  phrase — they  Jiap- 
pened,  but  not  just  as  they  were  caused.  Their  places  are 
determined,  as  the  name  Chronicle  imports,  chiefly  by  time. 
They  recall  the  current  of  one's  thoughts  in  the  pleasing,  but 
passive,  state  called  reverie  ;  in  which  we  stand,  as  it  were,  apart 
from  our  minds,  and  let  the  stream  of  suggestion  move  on 
as  it  may  chance  to  move.  In  this  state  of  reverie,  one 
image  will  rise  before  the  mind;  and,  having  vividly  pre- 
sented itself,  will  disappear  and  be  succeeded  by  another, 
and  this  by  a  third  ;  and  so  varied  will  the  procession  be,  that 
often  we  shall  be  unable  to  say  by  what  law  of  association  it 
was,  that  the  second  image  succeeded  the  first,  or  the  third 
succeeded  the  second.  Such  is  the  order,  or  rather  the 
historical  disorder,  of  the  movement  of  the  Chronicles.  For 
it  seldom  happens  in  the  life  of  the  world  that  effects  follow 
their  causes  with  the  immediateness  and  obviousness,  with 
which  the  conclusion  follows  the  premises  of  a  syllogism  in 
Barbara.  The  sun  rises  when  the  -cock  has  crowed.  So, 
for  the  most  part,  events  occur.  The  statement  is  true,  and 
may  befit  the  Chronicle.  But  the  rising  sun  and  the  crowing 
cock  are  not  effect  and  cause;  and  the  statement,  though 
true,  is  not  historic.  Reverie  is  a  fascinating  employ- 
ment; and  the  Chronicles  of  the  Middle  Age  have  all  the 
fascination  of  reverie.  But  the  student  must  cast  off  the  spell 
of  delicious  and  indolent  reverie;  and,  holding  himself  severely 
to  a  course  of  thought  determined  by  the  laws  of  thought, 
must  seek  developed  causes  in  effects  and  the  germs  of  effects 
in  causes;  knowing  that  to  such  a  worshipper  alone,  will  Truth 


14  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS   A    SCIENCE. 

vouchsafe  the  vision  of  her  awful  and  majestic  form.  So, 
also,  the  Historian  must  determine  to  be  more  than  a  Chron- 
icler. His  is  a  harder  and  nobler  labor,  and  his  is  a  higher 
reward.  Not  time,  but  cause — and,  above  all,  man,  the 
voluntary  cause  —  must  organize  his  profound  and  loft}' 
narrative. 

But  the  phrase,  a  narrative  of  human  activity  organized  b)' 
the  idea  of  cause,  defines  Biography  as  exactly  as  it  defines 
History.  It  becomes  us,  therefore,  to  ask  in  what  respects, 
if  any,  do  Biography  and  History  diiTer?  Our  answer  to 
this  question  will  depend  entirely  upon  the  reality,  which  we 
deny  or  assign  to  that  which  is  expressed  in  the  term  huinaiiity, 
when  set  over  against  the  term  personality.  If  the  former 
term  is  a  general  name  only — a  name  given  to  the  likenesses 
between  individuals  after  these  likenesses  have  been  ascer- 
tained by  abstraction  and  generalization  ; — if  we  regard  the 
likenesses  as  ultimate  facts  requiring  no  explanation  ;  if  we 
hold  with  the  Nominalist  that  the  great  term  humanity  is 
only  a  flatus  vocis\  we  must,  of  course,  deny  that  there  is 
any  profound  and  natural  distinction  between  Biography  and 
History.  But,  if  the  term  humanity,  or  human  nature, 
designates  a  real  existence,  and  if  this  existence  is  to  be 
affirmed  of  each  man;  if  the  common  nature  so  binds 
together  the  individuals  of  the  species  as  to  constitute — what 
is  more  than  an  aggregation  of  likenesses — a  real  and  organic 
unity;  if,  to  quote  the  words  of  another,-''  "side  b}' side  in 
one  and  the  same  subject,  in  every  particular  human  person, 
exist  the  common  humanity  with  its  universal  instincts  and 


Dr.  Shedd  ;  in  his  discourse  on  the  Historic  Spirit.  Theol.  Essays,  p.  55. 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  1 5 

tendencies,  and  the  individuality  with  its  particular  interests 
and  feelings;"  the  difference  between  the  idea  of  Biography 
and  the  idea  of  History  is  a  profound  and  physiological 
difference.  In  this  profound  difference  I  am  compelled  to 
believe,  just  as  I  am  compelled  to  believe  the  anthropology 
of  Augustine,  and  to  dissent  from  the  anthropology  of 
Pelagius.  It  is  true  that  there  is  no  sharp  division  between 
them  in  actual  literature.  Every  Biography  niust  be  historical, 
as  every  History  must  be  biographical ;  for  the  humanity 
exists  in  the  individual,  and  each  individual  shares  the  com- 
mon human  life.  But,  though  the  two  must  be  united  in 
the  literary  product,  the  difference  between  the  two  ideas 
exists.  Biography  separates  a  man  from  his  fellow  men, 
sets  forth  his  distinctive  traits,  and  the  special  circumstances 
of  his  life.  History  associates  man  with  his  fellows,  and 
contemplates  the  society  or  the  race  as  one.  Biography 
preserves  the  record  of  the  brief  lives  of  men.  History 
narrates  the  abiding  and  developing  career  of  man.  In  a 
word.  Biography,  even  when  universal,  deals  with  the  race  as 
existing  in  distinct  and  separate  units.  History,  however 
special,  though  dealing  with  a  single  man,  contemplates  him 
as  organically  related  to  all  men,  as  sharing  the  life  and 
spirit  of  Humanity. 

In  our  search  for  the  idea  of  human  History  up  to  this  point, 
we  have  found,  by  the  contrast  of  man  with  Nature,  that  its 
organizing  idea  must  be  voluntary  cause.  By  the  contrast 
of  Chronicle  with  History,  we  have  found  that  we  do  injustice 
to  this  organizing  idea,  when  we  determine  the  narrative  sim- 
ply by  time  ;  for  the  order  of  events  in  time  is  by  no  means 


l6  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

necessarily  or  always  the  order  of  cause  and  effect.  And  by 
the  contrast  of  Biography  and  History,  we  have  found  that 
History,  though  it  may  properly  narrate  events  that  are  due  to 
the  individual  and  separating  spirit,  must  hold  them  subor- 
dinate to  those  larger  and  deeper,  those  ecumenical  move- 
ments, which  are  the  products  of  the  human,  as  distinct  from 
the  merely  personal,  in  man.  At  this  point,  therefore,  we 
are  entitled  to  describe  History  as  a  narrative  of  the  move- 
ments of  the  human  race,  so  con.structed  as  to  exhibit  the 
relations  of  these  movements  as  causes  and  effects. 

But  we  have  not  yet  presented  the  idea  of  History  in  its 
completeness.  For  the  historian  may  not  leave  out  of  view 
the  obvious  truth,  that  the  human  will,  "self-moved  and  un- 
forced "  though  it  be,  is  conditioned  as  a  cause  by  its  material 
envirojinient.  It  was  an  inspired  Apostle  who  wrote  the 
sentence,  "We  that  are  in  this  tabernacle  do  groan,  being 
burdened. "  Who,  that  has  thought  of  it  at  all,  does  not  realize 
how  many  and  striking  are  the  limitations  which  this  body, 
the  very  instrument  of  its  activity,  puts  upon  the  efficiency  of 
the  human  spirit  in  space  and  time?  At  a  point  only  a  few 
thousand  feet  above  the  surface  of  the  earth,  or  at  a  point  only 
a  few  thousand  feet  below  its  surface,  the  limitation  becomes 
absolute;  death  ensues  and  historical  activity  ceases.  ,The 
mind  and  will  wait,  through  how  many  years  of  infancy  and 
childhood,  until  the  body  is  clothed  upon  with  strength;  and 
through  how  many  other  years,  during  the  process  of  the 
body's  decline?  I  gladly  repeat,  holding  them  to  embody 
a  sublime  truth,  the  noble  lines  of  Lovelace  : 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  1 7 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 

Nor  iron  bars  a  cage ; 
Minds  innocent  and  quiet  take 

That  for  a  hermitage. 
If  I  have  freedom  in  my  love, 

And  in  my  soul  am  free, 
Angels  alone,  that  soar  above, 

Enjoy  such  liberty.  " 

But,  though  expressing  the  subhme  truth  that  the  spirit  may 
be  free  while  the  body  is  imprisoned,  they  still  confess  the 
iron  bars  and  the  prison  walls.  I  have  spoken  of  the  king- 
doms of  necessary  activity  that  lie  below  man.  It  is  not  only 
true  that  they  lie  below  man;  but  man  is  of  them,  as  having 
a  body.  In  these  realms  are  the  conditions  of  historical 
activity.  These  conditions,  by  force  of  law  and  life  and 
instinctive  impulse,  react  upon  the  will  as  it  moves  forth  to 
efficient  action  in  time  and  space.  They  meet  man,  the 
voluntary  cause,  sometimes  as  instruments  ready  to  his  hand; 
sometimes  as  enemies  confronting  him  with  hostile  purpose; 
often  as  obstacles  too  formidable  to  surmount  or  too  vast  to 
destroy.  They  meet,  they  aid,  they  baffle,  they  woo,  they 
resist  the  human  will  in  a  thousand  forms — as  climate  and 
soil,  as  mountain  and  plain,  as  river  and  ocean,  as  sunshine 
and  storm,  as  gold  and  silver,  as  coal  and  iron,  as  steam  and 
electricity,  as  the  fertile  prairie,  and  the  desert  waste,  as  the 
beast  of  burden  and  the  beast  of  prey,  as  instinct  and  pas- 
sion, as  hunger  and  thirst.  And  so  formidable  to  some 
writers  have  these  conditions  appeared,  that  they  have  declared 
it  to  be  their  belief,  and  have  written  great  volumes  to  defend 
it,  that  in  thesQ  conditWHS — and  not,  after  all,  in  man — is  to  be 


l8  CHURCH    HISTOKY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

found  the  central  theme  of  History.  "  For  these,"  they  say, 
"are  the  only  potent  historical  causes.  Man  is  their  victim 
and  man's  activity  their  effect. "  Of  course,  we  shall  deny 
their  conclusion,  if  we  are  true  to  our  spiritual  nature,  the 
image  of  God  in  which  man  was  created.  But  while  denying 
their  conclusion,  we  must  still  confess  the  power  of  these 
uncounted  conditions  in  which  the  human  will  engages  in 
activity  beyond  itself  It  is  these  that  give  to  History  its 
variety  and  dramatic  action;  and — what  is  far  more  important 
— it  is  these  that  invest  the  great  problem  of  the  Philosophy 
of  History  with  the  difficulties  that  make  it  well-nigh  impos- 
sible of  solution. 

For  what  is  the  problem  of  the  Philosophy  of  History,  but 
to  find  the  unity  underlying  this  variety ;  to  discover  and 
formulate  the  single  law,  which  binds  together  this  uncounted 
multitude  of  cause  and  condition?  Though  the  problem  be 
difficult,  it  stands  before  us  imperatively  demanding  solution. 
For  if  this  unifying  law  can  not  be  found  and  stated,  if  this 
vast  multitude  of  historical  events  absolutely  refuses  to  be 
reduced  to  a  system,  upon  what  possible  ground  shall  History 
make  good  its  claim  to  a  place  among  the  sciences? 

It  may  appear  presumptuous  in  a  discourse,  limited  as  this 
must  be  by  the  occasion  that  assembles  us,  to  pursue  the 
unifying  law  of  History  through  this  complex  multitude  of 
conditions.  And,  indeed,  the  pursuit  would  be  hopeless, 
even  though  no  limitations  were  put  upon  the  discourse, 
except  this  only:  that  the  law  must  be  sought  in  the  conditions 
of  activity,  and  not  in  the  "unforced  and  self-moved"  human 
will.      For  with  the    postulate,   that   the    conditions  are  the 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  1 9 

causes  of  the  movements  of  the  race,  and  that  man,  as  he 
appears  in  History,  is  the  effect;  a  profound  Philosophy  of 
History  becomes  an  absolute  impossibility.  A  barren  posi- 
tivism becomes  the  final  statement  of  truth.  The  historical 
narrative  becomes  a  table  of  statistics.  The  highest  labor  of 
the  historian  becomes  the  classification,  under  the  law  of 
resemblance,  of  essentially  external  phenomena.  And  the 
ultimate  revelation  of  History  is  a  doctrine  of  averages,  more 
or  less  thoroughly  confirmed  by  observation. 

Doubtless,  while  I  have  been  speaking,  you  have  recalled 
the  two  profoundly  interesting  volumes  of  Mr.  Buckle's  un- 
finished "History  of  Civilization  in  England."  That  great 
fragment — for  fragment  as  it  is,  and  radically  vicious  as  it  is, 
it  is  as  strong  and  massive  as  a  torso  of  Hercules — derives  a 
pathetic  interest  from  the  relation  of  its  author  to  his  work. 
For  twenty  years,  Mr.  Buckle  gave  himself,  with  an  enthusiasm 
that  never  abated,  to  the  severest  study,  in  order  to  its  composi- 
tion. He  brought  to  the  preparation  of  the  work  itself,  a  mind 
singularly  gifted,  and  an  amount  and  variety  of  historical 
knowledge  that  has  rarely  been  equalled.  But  he  brought 
also  the  vicious  theory  of  History,  which  Mr.  Froude*  has 
accurately  described  in  the  statement,  that  "human  beings 
act  necessarily  from  the  impulse  of  outward  circumstances 
upon  their  mental  and  bodily  condition  at  any  given  moment ;" 
the  theory,  in  short,  that  the  unifying  law  of  History  must 
be  found,  if  at  all,  in  the  external  conditions  of  human  activ- 
ity, and  not  in  man  himself.  When  only  forty  years  of  age, 
soon  after  his  second  volume  had   issued  from   the  press, 


"  Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects,"  first  series,  p.  II. 


20  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

Mr.  Buckle  found  himself  obliged,  by  broken  health,  to  dis- 
continue his  labors.  He  travelled  in  the  East  in  search  of  a 
renewed  vigor  which  he  was  never  to  find.  In  a  few  months 
he  lay  on  his  death  bed,  in  what  perhaps  is  the  oldest  exist- 
ing city  of  the  world ;  in  the  Damascus  that  has  had  a  con- 
tinuous life,  since  it  gave  to  Abraham,  "  Eliezer,  the  steward 
of  his  house."  The  last  words  uttered  by  Mr.  Buckle,  as  he 
lay  dying,  were:  "My  book!  my  book !  I  shall  never  finish 
my  book."  And,  regarded  as  a  search  for  the  law  of  History, 
his  book  could  never  have  been  finished.  Had  his  life  been 
as  long  as  the  career  of  the  city  which  heard  his  last  mournful 
regret,  he  would,  at  the  term  of  his  prolonged  labors,  have 
still  been  as  far  from  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  History,  as 
he  was  at  the  close  of  twoscore  years.  What  could  he  have 
done,  but  continue,  through  the  centuries,  to  tread  his  dreary 
round  of  averages?  The  book  might  have  been  finished;  but 
the  law  of  History  would  have  been  a  secret  still. 

Whoever  would  find  and  formulate  the  law  that  gives  unity 
to  the  movements  of  human  society,  must  begin  by  recog- 
nizing man  as  both  the  efficient  cause  of  his  own  activity, 
and  the  constant  factor  amid  the  shifting  conditions  under 
which  he  acts.  Then  only  will  his  search  become  fruitful. 
But  then  it  will  be  fruitful.  Before  the  mind  of  such  a  stu-^ 
dent  of  man  will  emerge  the  two  traits,  which  yield,  in  gen- 
eral terms,  the  law,  and,  so  far  forth,  solve  the  problem  of  the 
Philosophy  of  History. 

Of  these  traits,  the  first  appears  in  the  statement  that  the 
unity  of  the  race  is  an  organic  unity.  The  fact  of  this  organic 
unity  would  seern  to  be  too  obvious  for  argument.      It  is  al- 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS   A    SCIENCE.  21 

most  self-evident  that  the  bond  of  union,  between  the  first 
human  pair  and  their  uncounted  descendants,  must  strikingly 
contrast  that  which  holds  together  the  molecules  of  a  body 
of  inorganic  matter.  Whatever  may  be  the  power  of  gravi- 
tation or  of  chemical  affinity,  it  constitutes  a  bond  which  is 
weakness  itself,  when  compared  with  continuous  and  throb- 
bing life;  for  it  is  a  bond  which  the  feeblest  life  is  competent 
to  sunder.  The  forces,  in  virtue  of  which  the  particles  of 
matter  cohere,  can  organize  nothing.  But  life  does  organize. 
And  the  race  of  man  is  one,  in  virtue  of  this  powerful,  con- 
tinuous and  organizing  life.  If  this  be  true,  the  movement 
of  humanity  in  History  is  an  organic  movement.  Nor  because 
the  word  has  been  employed  in  the  interests  of  an  anti-Chris- 
tian theory  without  historical  evidence  to  support  it,  should 
we  hesitate  at  all  to  apply  to  human  History  the  one  term  by 
which,  alone,  organic  movement  is  adequately  designated ;  I 
mean,  of  course,  the  term  evolution."^'-     It  has  more  than  once 


*  The  word  development  or  evolution  is  the  term  upon  which  Christian 
historians  have  most  often  seized  to  designate  the  movement  narrated  in 
History.  This  is  true  of  both  Neander  and  Gieseler.  Among  our  own 
writers,  the  same  use  of  the  word  is  to  be  found  in  Schaff  ("Apostol.  Ch.," 
pp.  3,  II,  kt  seq.),  R.  D.  Hitchcock  ("Am.  Theol.  Rev.,"  Feb.,  i860)  and 
Shedd  ("Theol.  Essays,"  p.  121).  Dr.  Shedd  applies  the  idea  of  evolution  to 
History  in  the  most  severe  and  thorough  manner.  Dr.  J.  Addison  Alexander, 
in  his  brilliant  remarks  on  Methodology — published  in  his  posthumous  work 
on  "New  Test.  Lit  and  Eccl.  Hist." — treats  History  as  a  discipline  and  not 
distinctly  as  a  science.  Indeed,  the  strong  determination  of  his  remarkable 
mind  towards  letters  led  him  prevailingly  to  regard  History  as  a  literary  art. 
Had  he  continued  in  this  chair,  he  would  probably  have  produced  one  of  the 
most  vivid,  graphic  and  dramatic  of  Church  Histories.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say,  that  he  might,  without  unduly  taxing  his  powers,  have  done  for  any 
period  of  the  Church's  life  what  Lord  Macaulay  has  done  for  the  English 
Revolution.  Certainly  he  would  have  brought  to  his  work  a  learning  as 
ample,  and  a  rhetoric  as  charming,  as  Macaulay's.     In  view   of  the  need  of 


2  2  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

been  clearly  shown  that  all  the  elements  of  development 
appear  in  the  great  movements  of  the  race  of  which  History 
is  the  narrative.  The  evolution  of  humanity  from  the  first 
pair  is  an  evolution  as  really  as  the  evolution  of  an  oak-forest 
from  an  acorn. 

But  the  historical  evolution  of  humanity — and  here,  we 
come  upon  the  other  trait — is  separated  from  every  lower  evo- 
lution by  a  quality  distinctly  its  own.  This  quality  is,  of  course, 
freedom  or  self-determination.  The  development  of  the  germ, 
out  of  which  is  evolved  the  spreading  forest,  is  a  movement 
as  necessary  as  the' movement  of  the  sun  in  his  orbit.  But  the 
evolution  of  humanity  has  been  determined  in  and  through 
man's  voluntary  nature.  We  are  started  upon  the  right  path, 
therefore,  in  our  search  for  the  unifying  law  of  History,  when 
we  begin  with  the  truth  that  it  is  the  law  of  self-determined  . 
human  development. 

But  we  are  only  started  upon  the  path.     For,  though  this 
statement  brings  into  clear  view  both  the  beginning  and  the 

such  a  History  of  the  Church — which  even  Dean  Milman's  volumes  do  not 
supply — it  is  to  be  regretted  that  Dr.  Alexander  did  not  employ  his  great 
gifts  and  learning  in  the  composition  of  a  Church  History.  But,  while  the 
distinctly  literary  habit  of  Dr.  Alexander's  mind  was  not  such  as  to  make  him 
seize  strongly  upon  the  word  evolution  as  expressive  of  the  historical  move- 
ment, there  is  more  than  one  statement  in  the  volume  referred  to,  which  sets 
forth  his  conviction  of  the  importance  of  holding  clearly  before  the  mind  the 
continuity  of  History,  even  when  breaking  up  the  narrative  of  the  Church's 
life  into  minor  histories,  for  the  sake  of  convenience  in  study.  "Instead,"  he 
says,  "of  assuming  certain  periods,  and  then  cutting  these  into  strips  and 
slices  by  a  uniform  and  rubrical  division,  we  may  let  each  topic  reach  as  far 
as  it  will,  or  as  we  find  convenient,  using  chronological  divisions  not  to  cut 
them  up,  but  simply  to  mark  the  surface,  like  the  shadow  on  a  dial.  Eccle- 
siastical History,  thus  viewed,  is  a  congeries  of  minor  histories,  each  of  which 
is,  in  a  certain  sense,  complete  within  itself;  but,  in  another  sense,  incom- 
plete without  the  rest." — Page  276. 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  2$ 

nature  of  the  historic  movement,  it  asserts  nothing  at  all  as  to 
either  the  vwral  quality  of  the  movement  or  its  conclusion. 
And  no  Philosophy  of  History  can  be  regarded  as,  in  any 
sense,  complete  which  does  not  pronounce  upon  the  moral 
quality  of  humanity,  and,  at  least,  intimate  the  consumma- 
tion of  all  things.  These  are  the  two  subjects  which  are 
invested  with  the  profoundest  interest  for  the  historical  student. 
The  mind,  when  brought  face  to  face  with  a  large  period  of 
History,  or  even  with  the  life  of  a  single  member  of  the  spe- 
cies, asks  first  of  all  questions  upon  these  great  themes.  But 
to  such  questions,  the  statement,  that  the  historical  movement 
is  a  free  development,  contains  no  answer.  The  life  of 
humanity  on  earth  would  have  been  just  as  free,  and  just  as 
clearly  a  development,  had  our  first  parents  maintained  un- 
sulHed,  the  hohness  in  which  they  were  created. 

Still,  it  is  only  as  we  hold  before  us  this  voluntariness  in  the 
development  of  the  race,  that  we  see  clearly  the  truth  that  the 
historic  movement  must  have  moral  character  as  its  pre- 
eminent and  distinctive  quality.  It  is  in  virtue  of  this  dis- 
tinctly spiritual  power  of  self-determination  alone,  that  human 
History  possesses  moral  character.  For  the  self-determination 
of  man  is  wide  apart  from  the  mere  volition  of  the  brute.  That 
the  brute  creation  possess  a  power  of  volition,  we  need  not 
hesitate  to  admit ;  if  only  we  are  careful  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  voluntary  nature  of  man.  In  the  case  of  the  brute,  the 
outer  world  acts  upon  its  instinctive  impulses.  These  in- 
stinctive impulses  regulate  the  judgments  of  the  brute's 
understanding ;  and  these  judgments,  in  turn,  are  necessarily 
executed  by  a  faculty,   which,    because   it   seizes   the    most 


24  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS   A    SCIENCE. 

appropriate  out  of,  perhaps,  sev^eral  means  at  hand,  may  not 
improperly  be  denominated  a  faculty  of  volition.  But  in  all 
this  movement  there  is  no  proper  freedom.  In  all  this  there 
is  no  choice  of  end.  The  end  of  the  whole  process  is  fixed  ; 
and  fixed  as  necessarily  as  it  is  in  inorganic  matter.  The 
difference  between  this  mere  brute  volition  and  the  voluntari- 
ness of  man  is  as  wide  as  the  difference  between  heaven  and 
earth.  For  the  very  end  and  purpose  of  life,  is,  in  the  case  of 
man,  self-determined. 

Just  here,  then,  we  begin  to  grasp  the  awful  import  and 
unity  of  human  History.  It  is  the  narrative  of  man's  choice 
of  the  purpose  of  his  life,  and  of  human  development  as  fixed 
by  this  tremendous  act  of  self-determination.  The  human 
History  must  begin  with  an  all-important  and  morally-de- 
termining choice,  and  must  proceed  with  the  exhibition  of  ' 
the  development  which  that  choice  has  determined.  This  is 
the  unifying  law  of  human  History. 

And  now,  to  advance  from  the  nature  of  human  History 
to  the  terrible  objective  narrative  which,  under  this  law  of  its 
unity,  constitutes  the  substance  of  History —it  is,  first  of  all,  to 
be  said,  that  we  do  not  need  to  read  the  inspired  Book  of 
Origins,  in  order  to  learn  that  the  choice,  which  must  determine 
the  moral  quality  of  the  development,  has  already  been  made. 
It  is  the  distinction  of  an  organic  movement  that,  its  character 
reappears  at  every  point  of  the  movement,  both  in  space  and 
time.  Take  up  the  History  of  humanity  in  any  zone  and  in 
any  century;  and  the  revelation  will  be  clear  enough  that  the 
race  has  made  a  sinful  choice — a  choice  against  God  and 
against  its  own  spiritual  nature— and  is,  therefore,  a  fallen  and 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  25 

guilty  race.  A  study  of  the  race,  as  we  find  it  to-day,  will 
not,  indeed,  reveal  to  us  when  or  under  what  conditions  the 
choice  that  fixed  human  character  was  made.  But  we  shall 
be  compelled  to  believe  that,  at  some  time  and  under  some 
conditions  appointed  by  the  race's  Governor,  man,  by  the 
free  and  unforced  exercise  of  his  supremest  power,  chose 
evil,  and  fixed  the  moral  quality  of  the  development  of 
humanity  as  fallen  and  guilty  before  conscience  and  in  the 
sight  of  God.  To  us,  the  sad  and  terrible  story  of  the  race's 
self-determination  to  evil  has  been  distinctly  revealed.*  We 
read  the  inspired  History  of  the  race's  creation  in  the  image 
of  God  the  Creator.  We  follow  the  narrative  up  to  the 
catastrophe,  in  which  all  is  lost,  and  which  occurs  by  the 
united  self-determination  of  our  First  Parents,  who,  at  this 
time,  constitute  the  ivJiole  hiuiian  species.  That  self-deter- 
mined fall  of  the  race  from  God  did  not  put  a  period  to  the 
race's  development;   but  the  moral  character  of  the  develop- 


*The  historical  character  of  the  narrative  of  the  Fall  in  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis has  more  than  once  been  attacked  by  writers  who  profess  to  study  it  from 
a  Theistic  point  of  view,  and  it  has  been  proposed  to  interpret  it  as  allegori- 
cal. But  the  narrative,  regarded  as  History,  is  certainly  not  inherently 
incredible.  If  the  race  was  to  be  tested,  there  must  have  been  a  test.  What 
test  more  congruous  with  the  simple  life  of  the  garden  can  be  conceived  than 
the  test  of  the  forbidden  tree  ?  If  the  narrative  is  allegorical,  it  is  an  allegory 
of  the  Fall.  But  how  could  our  First  Parents  have  fallen  in  the  circum- 
stances without  a  positive  command  to  violate?  And  what  command  more 
appropriate  could  there  have  been  than  the  one  given  them?  Those  who 
call  the  narrative  an  allegory  are  bound  to  till  up  the  blank,  which  they  make 
by  allegorizing,  with  a  more  credible  and  congruous  narrative,  as  an  hypothe- 
sis. But,  I  take  it,  one  such  can  not  be  found.  It  is  no  harder  to  believe 
that  refraining  from  eating  the  fruit  of  a  particular  tree  was,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  human  probation,  made  the  sacrament  of  obedience,  than  it  is  to  be- 
lieve that  eating  and  drinking  the  bread  and  wine  were,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  dispensation,  made  the  sacrament  of  remembrance  and  faith. 


2$  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A   SCIENCE. 

merit  was  revolutionized.  It  became  the  development  of  a 
fallen  and  guilty  race ;  and  the  consummation,  which  the 
historical  development  has  intimated  at  every  point  in  space 
and  time,  is  absolute  spiritual  disaster. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  process  by  which  this  con- 
clusion has  been  reached,  the  conckision  itself  is,  in  substance, 
the  necessary  basis  of  a  Christian  Philosophy  of  History.  If  the 
movement — apart  from  the  influence  of  Christianity — which 
History  records  is  not  the  development  toward  deeper  evil 
of  a  sinful  and  guilty  race;  if  this  is  not  the  profoundest  unity 
of  History  unmodified  by  Christianity,  upon  what  possible 
ground  can  we  assert  the  absolute  need  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  in  order  to  the  salvation  of  mankind  ?  I  know,  indeed 
— and  am  by  no  means  disposed  to  ignore  the  fact — that 
not  all  of  the  Theologians  of  our  own  Church,  when  formulat- 
ing the  Philosophy  of  History  or  systematizing  the  doctrines 
of  our  faith,  have  given  the  emphasis  and  importance,  which,  in 
this  address,  have  been  accorded  to  the  solidarity  of  the 
human  species.  It  must,  indeed,  be  confessed  that  the  sub- 
ject is  among  the  most  mysterious  of  those  on  which  Theology 
is  employed,  and  is  beset  with  great  difficulties.  Many  great 
theologians,  partly  in  order  to  escape  some  of  these  difficul- 
ties, and  partly  in  order  to  conform  their  system  to  what  they 
believe  to  be  the  teaching  of  the  Word  of  God,  have  selected, 
as  their  point  of  departure,  the  representative  relation  sustained 
by  the  first  Adam  to  his  posterity,  instead  of  the  substantial 
oneness  of  the  human  race.  And  others,  shrinking  from  the 
real  or  supposed  ethical  implications  of  both  of  these  solu- 
tions, have  started  with  the  sin,  manifested  in  the  active  trans- 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  27 

gression  of  individual    men ;   and    moving    backward    to  the 
birth  of  the  individual,  and  upward  through  a  sinful  ancestry 
to  the  fall  of  the  first  human  pair,  have  maintained   that  per- 
sonal  guilt   succeeds,  and   yet  rests  upon  the  vitiated  nature 
which  has  been  derived  as  a  natural  inheritance.      The  differ- 
ences between  these  views  are  not  unimportant.     Regarded  as 
theories  of  original  sin,  their  presence  in   the  same  Church  is 
the  result    of   three    different,    but    noble    and    powerful    in- 
tellectual tendencies.     The  first  theory,  that  of  real  oneness, 
seems    to  have    been    conceived    in    the    historical,   the    rep- 
resentative   theory,    in    the    theological,    and    the    remaining 
theory  in  the  ethical  spirit.     Dissimilar,  however,  as  they  are, 
their  agreements  are  far  more  profound  than  their  differences. 
Uniting  in  the  confessional  declaration,  that  the  descendants, 
by   ordinary  generation,    of  our  first  parent   "sinned  in  him 
and  fell  with   him  in  his  first   transgression,"  they  unite  also 
in  teaching,  that  just  as  far  as  the  movement  of  History  is  a 
development  at  all,  just  so   far,  apart  from   Christ,    it  is  the 
development  of  a  sinful  society,  whose  end  is  a  merited  de- 
struction. 

In  the  light  of  this  solemn  truth  and  under  the  law  of 
this  terrible  unity,  must  the  Christian  historian  interpret 
the  narrative  of  the  human  race.  When,  turning  to  the  age 
of  Nero,  he  reads  the  awful  description  of  society,  for  which 
we  are  indebted  to  the  Stoic  Seneca,  or  gazes  in  horror  upon 
the  still  darker  picture  painted  by  the  Christian  Paul,  and 
then  searches  for  the  historical  cause  of  this  seething  mass  of 
evil  passion  breeding  death  ;  he  is  compelled  to  confess  that 
its  historical  cause  finds  exact  expression  in  the  solemn  words 


2  8  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE. 

of  Inspiration :  "By  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world  ;  and 
death  by  sin :  and  so  death  passed  upon  all  men,  for  that  all 
have  sinned."  This  would  be  the  final  and  terrible  Philosophy 
of  History,  but  for  the  revelation  and  bestowment  of  the 
grace  of  God. 

I  say  but  for  the  grace  of  God.  It  is  in  the  grace  of  God, 
his  sovereign  and  redeeming  grace,  that  we  find  the  last,  but 
also  the  regnant  element,  to  be  considered  in  formulating  the 
Philosophy  of  History;  in  declaring  the  law  that  gives  unity 
to  its  large  and  majestic  narrative.  The  time  at  my  command 
does  not  justify  an  endeavor  to  connect,  in  any  detailed  man- 
ner, this  last  element  with  the  preceding  elements  we  have 
considered.  This  much,  however,  let  me  say.  We  have 
moved  through  a  series  of  increasingly  potential  elements  of 
the  historic  movement;  from  law  to  life, — from  life  to  con- 
scious life, — from  conscious  life  to  man,  the  voluntary  cause — 
mightier  than  all  the  conditions  that  lie  below  him.  We  have 
found  the  beginning  of  History  to  have  been  the  employment 
by  man  of  his  supremest  power  in  a  self-determined  act ; 
which  concluded  the  race  in  sin  and  guilt,  and  fixed  the  char- 
acter of  the  historic  movement,  as  a  sinful  and  guilty  develop- 
ment. But — to  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  the  grace  of  God — 
let  it  be  told  with  adoring  gratitude,  that  we  have  reached,  in 
the  grace  that  redeems  man,  by  far  the  most  potent  element 
of  the  series.  For,  "where  sin  abounded,  grace  did  much 
more  abound:  that  as  sin  hath  reigned  unto  death,  even  so 
might  grace  reign  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life  by 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

Doubtless,   this  address  would  possess  a  unity  more  dis- 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    SCIENCE.  29 

tinctly  obvious,  were  I  to  unfold  the  radical  modification 
of  History,  effected  by  the  grace  of  God,  as  the  creation  and 
development  of  a  new  germ,  instead  of  presenting  it  in  the 
form  which  I  shall  adopt.  I  prefer,  however,  at  this  point,  even 
at  some  peril  to  rhetorical  unity,  to  employ  another  conception. 
For  upon  occasions  like  the  present,  it  is  fitting,  by  recalling 
their  services  and  repeating  their  words,  to  honor  the  illustrious 
dead.  No  American  student  of  Church  History  should  forget, 
in  circumstances  like  those  in  which  I  find  myself  to-night, 
gratefully  to  recall  the  labors  and  pronounce  the  name  of  Henry 
Boynton  Smith.  It  would  remove  me  too  far  from  the  subject 
before  us,  were  I  to  mention  his  abundant  toils  for  the  Church 
of  God,  or  to  refer  adequately  to  his  noble  contributions  to 
this  department  of  sacred  learning.  But  since  I  am  now  upon 
the  high  theme  of  the  last  and  dominant  element  in  the  histori- 
cal movement,  I  think  I  shall  best  honor  his  memory,  if  I  turn 
from  the  conception  which  has  prevailed  in  this  address,  in 
order  to  employ,  for  the  time,  the  conception  which  to  him 
seemed  most  true  to  the  facts,  most  scriptural  and  most  ma- 
jestic— the  conception  of  the  gracious  Kiugdoin  of  God. 
"That,"  said  Dr.  Smith,  in  his  inaugural  address  as  Professor 
of  Church  History  in  Union  Seminary,  "that  which  shapes  the 
whole  character  and  determines  the  final  destiny  of  a  people, 
that  which  has  always  done  this,  and  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  must  do  this,  is  its  religious  faith;  for  here  are  the  highest 
objects  acting  on  the  deepest  and  most  permanent  wants  of  the 
human  heart.  And  in  the  whole  history  of  man  we  can  trace  the 
course  of  one  shaping,  overmastering  and  progressive  power, 
before  which  all  others  have  bowed,  and  that  is  the  spiritual  king- 


30  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS   A    SCIENCE. 

do7n  of  God,  having  for  its  object  the  redemption  of  man  from 
the  ruins  of  apostasy.  If  we  could  but  reahze  the  majestic 
simpHcity  of  this  kingdom,  its  spiritual  nature  and  sublime  in- 
tent ;  if  we  could  make  present  to  us  the  full  idea  of  it,  which 
is  not  an  idea  alone,  but  also  a  reality;  if  we  could  see  that 
holiness  is  the  great  end  of  our  being,  and  that  sin  is  its  very 
opposite,  and  that  redemption  is  for  the  removal  of  sin  and 
for  the  establishment  of  a  lioly  kingdoin — then  were  we  in  the 
right  position  for  reading,  in  their  highest  meaning,  all  the 
records  of  our  race."  * 

Here,  then,  at  the  close  of  our  search  for  the  organiz- 
ing idea  and  the  philosophy  of  universal  History,  have  we 
found   the   idea  of  CluuxJi   History;    for  Church   History  is 

*  Dr.  Smith  has  set  forth  in  his  Introduction  to  Christian  Theology  the 
grounds  upon  which  he  regards  the  Christian  Philosophy  of  History  as  the 
true  Philosophy.  "It  is  the  only  one,"  he  says,  "which  can  be  conformed 
to  the  four  requisitions  of  a  true  science  of  history,  (i.)  The  scheme  must 
be  a  legitimate  generalization  from  the  entire  mass  of  kistoricia.cts.  The  king- 
dom of  redemption  can  be  historically  traced  through  all  the  records  of  the 
earth.  The  '  preparations  '  for  it,  direct  or  indirect ;  the  receptions  and  re- 
actions in  regard  to  it,  have  run  through  every  historic  nation.  It  has  sur- 
vived all  states.  (2.)  The  scheme  must  be  able  to  state  some  one  adequate 
law  of  progress  running  through  all  history.  The  progress  of  this  kingdom 
has  been  a  perpetual  growth  through  perpetual  conflicts.  All  other  cohflicts 
may  be  resolved  into  the  conflict  between  sin  and  holiness.  (3.)  The  scheme 
must  propose  some  adequate  end  or  object  of  the  historic  course.  Christianity 
sets  before  the  human  family  a  grand  and  glorious  consummation,  where  the 
natural  interests  of  man,  in  their  integrity  and  their  full  development,  are 
made  subservient  to  spiritual  interests,  and  to  the  revelation  of  the  highest 
spiritual  glory.  (4.)  It  is  necessary  to  recognize  a  power  adequate  to  the 
whole  result.  The  kingdom  of  redemption  is  God's  own  work  and  plan, 
projected,  upheld,  consummated  by  him.  Facts,  law,  aim  and  author  are 
bound  up  into  one  scheme  by  this  divine  agency. 

"  Hence,  on  philosophical  grounds,  we  are  forced  to  seek  the  solution  of  the 
historic  problem  in  the  kingdom  of  redemption.  We  can  connect  human  his- 
tory into  an  organized  unity  on  no  other  theory  or  ground."     (Pp.  183,  184.) 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE.  3 1 

itself  the  universal  History.  It  is  the  universal  History- 
organized  by  the  profoundest  idea,  and  governed  in  all  its 
narrative  by  the  ultimate  Philosophy  of  History.  No  events 
are  too  secular  for  its  regard  ;  no  objects  are  too  unimportant 
for  its  serious  study  ;  no  distance  of  time  or  space  is  too  great 
for  its  narrative  to  traverse.  And  in  the  consummation  of  all 
things,  when  prophecy  shall  be  read  as  History,  it  will  be 
revealed  to  all  that  the  tmiversal  History  is  the  History  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.'^  "For  by  Him  were  all  things  created 
that  are  in  heaven  and  that  are  in  earth,  visible  and  invisible, 
whether  they  be  thrones,  or  dominions,  or  principahties,  or 
powers ;  all  things  were  created  by  Him  and  for  Him,  and 
He  is  before  all  things,  and  by  Him  all  things  consist.  And 
He  is  the  head  of  the  body,  the  Church." 

(ll.)    CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A  DISCIPLINE. 

If  I  have  correctly,  however  inadequately,  unfolded  the 
idea  of  Church  History,  we  shall  be  at  no  loss  for  grounds 
on  which  to  justify  the  practice,  uniform  in  our  schools  for 
theological  study,  of  assigning  to  the  science  of  History  a 
place  not  second  to  that  assigned  to  any  of  the  other  disci- 


*The  difference  between  secular  and  religious  History  is  not  that  the 
former  narrates  events  which  the  latter  leaves  untouched.  The  difference 
between  them  is  to  be  found  solely  in  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  same 
events  are  regarded.  Although  Motley's  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic  nar- 
rates the  History  of  a  religious  movement,  it  is  not  a  religious  History  ;  for  it 
contemplates  the  movement  from  a  political  point  of  view.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  religious  History  does  not  lose  its  character  as  religious  because  it 
deals  with  political  events;  for  all  political  events  have  religious  relations, 
and  upon  these  the  mind  of  the  religious  historian  is  fastened.  And  since 
these  are  their  profoundest  and  ultimate  relations,  religious  History,  in  its 
idea,  is  the  profoundest  and  ultimate  universal  History. 


32  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE. 

pHnes.  These  grounds  I  shall  not  now  attempt  directly  to 
state.  Permit  me,  however,  briefly  to  set  forth  the  relations 
sustained  by  Church  History  to  the  other  departments,  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  into  view  the  precise  influence  which 
it  exerts  upon  the  student's  mind. 

Setting  aside,  for  the  moment,  Church  History  itself,  the 
several  departments  of  the  theological  course  arrange  them- 
selves under  the  two  great  divisions  of  science  and  art.  Not 
only  are  Systematic  Divinity  and  Apologetics  (the  latter  a 
department  to  which  both  the  skeptical  tendencies  of  the  age 
and  the  increasing  evidences  of  Christianity  have,  during  late 
years,  given  great  prominence)  entitled  to  be  called  theolog- 
ical sciences.  The  word  science  best  describes  the  knowledge 
derived  from  what  have  too  often  been  regarded  and  classi- 
fied as  mere  propadeutic  studies  —  Hebrew  and  New  Testa- 
ment Greek.  For  in  these  departments,  the  study  of  language 
is  subsidiary  to  textual  and  literary  criticism,  and  this,  in  turn, 
to  exegesis;  each  of  the  departments  finding  its  consumma- 
tion and  final  cause  only  in  the  Old  Testament  or  the  New 
Testament  Theology.  The  reasons  to  be  urged  for  giving 
the  name  science  to  Systematic  Theolog}''  are  quite  as  forcible 
when  urged  for  applying  it  to  Biblical  Theology.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  department  of  Homiletics  and  the  Pastoral 
Office  may  not  inaccurately  be  described  as  the  department  of 
theological  art.  The  methods  employed  in  the  other 
departments  are  investigation  and  analysis,  and  the  products 
yielded  are  classified  or  scientific  knowledge.  The  method 
of  this  department  is  synthetic,  and  synthesis  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  art.    Its  function  is  to  enable  the  student  to  recom- 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A   DISCIPLINE.  33 

bine  the  classified  knowledge,  which  he  brings  from  the  study 
of  the  theological  sciences,  in  the  forms  in  which,  as  a 
preacher  and  pastor,  he  can  best  employ  them. 

It  is  the  distinction  of  History  that,  more  thoroughly  than 
any  of  the  other  disciplines,  it  is  both  scientific  and  artistic  ; 
both  analytic  and  synthetic.  In  one  aspect  of  it,  History  is 
a  body  of  knowledge  organized  by  an  idea.  In  another  aspect 
of  it,  it  is  a  belles  Icttrcs  product.  On  this  account,  it  is  more 
largely  indebted  than  any  of  the  others  to  the  departments 
with  which,  in  the  theological  course,  it  is  co-ordinated.  On 
the  one  hand,  more  distinctly  than  does  any  other  theological 
science,  it  owes  its  literary  form  to  the  art  of  discourse. 
Upon  the  rhetorical  excellence  of  its  form,  it  is  even  more 
dependent  than  is  Systematic  Theology.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  owes  its  principles  of  organization  to  the  theological  sciences. 
The  facts  of  History  can  not  be  known  in  their  highest  and 
profoundest  relations,  'oy  the  student  who  is  not  prepared  for 
their  study  by  the  discipHne  and  culture  of  the  mind,  to  be 
obtained  only  by  a  careful  study  of  the  laws  of  the  Christian 
evidences,  of  the  doctrinal  system,  and  of  the  meaning  of 
the  words  of  Revelation.  But,  if  History  is  thus  a  debtor,  it 
is  also  a  creditor.  In  unfolding  the  benefits  by  which  its 
obligations  to  the  other  studies  are  discharged,  I  can  speak 
of  the  historical  discipline,  only  as  it  affects  the  student  in  the 
two  departments  of  Systematic  and  Biblical  Theology. 

The  influence  exerted  by  History  on  the  student  of  Sys- 
tematic Theology  will  be  made  evident  by  holding  before  our 
minds  the  difference  between  a  theological  judgment  and  an 
historical  judgment.     The  former  is  simple  and  positive.     The 


34 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS   A    DISCIPLINE. 


latter  is  complex  and  comparative.  The  one  is  qualitative ; 
the  other  is  quantitative.  To  make  this  more  clear  by  means 
of  a  well-known  and  interesting  example,  let  us  take  the  case 
of  Arminianism.  Both  the  teacher  of  Theology  and  the 
teacher  of  History  are  compelled  to  pronounce  an  opinion 
upon  Arminianism.  It  rises'  into  most  prominent  view  in 
both  departments.  The  duty  of  the  theologian  is  absolute. 
Arminianism  is  truth,  or  it  is  error.  And  between  truth  and 
error  there  can  be  no  compromise.  To  the  view  of  the 
Calvinistic  theologian,  the  truth  is  upon  the  side  to  which 
Arminianism  is  opposed.  It  is  his  function  to  pronounce  Ar- 
minianism an  error,  and  to  set  forth  the  grounds  of  his  judg- 
ment. Here  his  work  as  a  theologian  terminates.  But  Armin- 
ianism rises  into  view,  also,  in  the  History  of  the  Church.  The 
historian,  however,  meets  it  not  as  a  system  pure  and  simple,  ' 
but  as  a  system  in  action ;  not  as  an  idea  simply,  but  as  an 
idea  in  its  realization.  He  meets  it  in  the  lives  of  the  Wes- 
leys;  in  the  rise  of  that  great  evangelical  communion 
which,  during  the  closing  years  of  the  past  century  and 
throughout  the  present  century,  has  so  abundantly  blessed 
both  England  and  our  own  country.  It  is  obvious  that 
the  judgment  of  the  historian,  however  strong  his  Calvinistic 
prepossessions  may  be,  must  be  very  different  from  that 
of  the  theologian.  It  is  not  that  he  will  disagree  with 
the  theologian ;  but  associated  with  the  system  to  be 
judged,  will  be  a  congeries  of  modifying  facts ;  and  the  whole 
will  constitute  the  Arminianism  of  History  as  contrasted  with 
the  Arminianism  of  Theology.  The  judgment  pronounced 
in  the  one  case  will  be  upon  the  relation  of  a  system  to  the 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS   A    DISCIPLINE.  35 

truth.  The  judgment  pronounced  in  the  other  case  will  be 
upon  the  influence  of  the  system  under  actual  historical 
conditions.  Of  course,  the  judgments  will  conspicuously 
differ.  And  in  point  of  fact,  both  of  them  have  been 
pronounced  by  the  ministry  of  our  own  Church.  Theo- 
logically, we  are  compelled,  when  loyal  to  our  vision  of  the 
truth  which  God  has  revealed,  to  assert  that  Arminianism  is 
not  only  an  error,  but  an  error  at  the  center  of  Theology, 
and  at  the  center  of  Soteriology.  But,  historically,  we 
welcome  the  Arminian  Wesleyan,  as  a  brother  beloved,  to  our 
pulpits*  and  to  our  meetings  for  prayer.  We  acknowledge 
the  validity  of  his  ordination,  and  of  his  administration  of  the 
sacraments;  and  we  gladly  unite  with  him  as  one  of  the  host 
of  the  elect  in  labor  for  the  redemption  of  the  world. 

This  familiar  example  will  serve  to  bring  vividly  before  us 
the  exact  influence  exerted  by  the  study  of  History  upon  the 
student  of  Systematic  Theology.  Its  influence  is  to  imbue 
the  student  with  the  catholic  spirit.  Let  the  History  of  the 
Church  be  studied  apart  from  Theology,  and  its  profound- 
est  truth  will  never  be  disclosed.  So  far  as  this  profound 
meaning  is  concerned,  the  facts  of  History  might  as  well  be 
a  loose  and  insignificant  aggregation.  Let  the  influence  of 
Theology,  unmixed  with  History,  be  exerted  upon  the  stu- 
dent, and  the  result  will  be  that  which  it  has  been,  in  what, 
let  us  hope,  is   the  absolutely  vanished   past — it  will  be  the 

*  On  the  Sabbath  immediately  preceding  the  day  on  which  this  paragraph 
was  written,  the  writer  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  an  able  discourse  deliv- 
ered in  the  pulpit  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Walnut  Hills,  Cincinnati, 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bayliss  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  with  whom  the 
Rev.  Dr.  FuUerton  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  had  exchanged. 


36  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE. 

generation  of  the  odium  tJieologicmn.  That  the  study  of 
History  abates  and  tends  to  destroy  this  baleful  passion, 
which  has  already  done  so  much  to  impede  the  advance  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  and  induces  a  catJiolic  temper  in  the  student 
of  Theology,  were  ground  enough  on  which  to  justify  its 
presence  and  eminence  as  a  discipline  in  a  school  of  sacred 
learning. 

It  is  another  merit  of  History,  regarded  as  a  branch  of 
theological  learning,  that  it  exerts  a  distinct  and  beneficent 
influence  on  the  student,  when  engaged  in  those  departments, 
the  aim  of  which  is  the  interpretation  of  the  written  Word. 
If  it  were  proper  to  institute  comparisons  between  the  several 
disciplines,  I  would  be  compelled  to  assign  the  most  important 
place  to  those,  which  bring  the  student  into  most  intimate 
communion  with  the  words  of  Inspiration,  and  seek  to  elicit 
from  the  Bible  its  exact  historical  significance.  It  is  in  these 
studies,  that  Protestant  scholarship  has  achieved  its  noblest 
victories.  It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  the 
labors  of'  Biblical  scholars,  since  John  Reuchlin,  in  the  face 
of  the  narrow  Mediaeval  prejudice,  sought  instruction  in  He- 
brew from  a  learned  Jew;  and  Desiderius  Erasmus  gave  to 
the  Church  his  edition  of  the  New  Testament.  The  twofold 
department,  which  enters  into  and  continues  their  labors,  is 
the  chosen  home  of  the  spirit  of  Protestant  Christianity.  In 
this,  as  in  no  other  department,  is  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment asserted  and  exercised ;  for  here,  in  its  most  exact 
meaning,  is  the  answer  sought  to  the  question  of  questions, 
"What  does  God  teach  in  his  written  Revelation?" 

But  the  emphasis  of  the  right  of  private  judgment  is  not 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE.  37 

unattended  with  danger.  It  is  the  danger  of  too  highly 
estimating  individual  opinion,  when  it  pushes  itself  against 
the  continuous  current  of  the  Church's  belief.  The  reaUty  of 
this  danger  and  the  seriousness  of  the  evils  that  flow  from  it 
have  not  seldom  been  exemplified  in  the  History  of  Biblical 
study.  It  was  from  the  point  of  view  of  Biblical  criticism, 
that  Strauss  reconstructed  the  life  of  Jesus.  It  was  from 
the  same  point  of  view,  that  Baur  wrought  out  the  bold 
hypothesis,  that  Christianity  owes  its  existence  to-day  to  the 
compromise  which  ended  the  wars  and  contradictions  be- 
tween thePetrine  and  Pauline  sects;  in  whose  bitterness, 
the  primitive  Church  had  been  well-nigh  destroyed.  It  is  a 
significant  fact,  that,  as  against  this  destructive  criticism, 
the  faith  of  the  Church  found  its  ablest  defender  in  a  scholar 
deeply  imbued  with  the  historical  spirit ;  in  that  great  man 
whom  we  must  still  mention,  when  we  would  name  the 
Church's  greatest  historian.  I  mean,  of  course,  Augustus 
Neander. 

As  all  of  us  know,  the  close  of  that  controversy  left  the 
faith  of  the  Church  in  the  New  Testament  unimpaired.  But 
though  that  has  closed,  another  controversy,  born  also  of 
Biblical  criticism,  is  upon  us.  Nor  can  we  indulge  the  hope, 
that,  upon  its  conclusion,  our  peace  will  not  be  troubled  by 
a  third.  For  the  glory  of  Biblical  study— the  glory  I  mean 
that  it  brings  man  face  to  face  with  the  Word  of  God— is  the 
source  of  the  danger  that  attends  it ;  the  danger  that  undue 
importance  will  be  attached  to  individual  opinion.  It  seems, 
therefore,  too  plain  for  argument,  that  there  is  needed,  in 
close  association  with  the  Biblical  course,  another  discipline, 


38  CHUkCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE. 

which,  by  its  emphasis  of  the  value  of  tj'adition,  will  moderate 
the  tendency  to  welcome  new  hypotheses,  as  though  of  neces- 
sity they  are  the  heralds  of  new  truths.  Such  a  moderating 
discipline,  it  is  unnecessary  to  show,  is  found  in  History 
itself  The  spirit  with  which  it  imbues  its  earnest  and  candid 
student,  will  lead  him  to  meet  the  brilliant  and  unhistoric 
speculations  of  the  individual  mind  with  becoming  caution 
and  skepticism.  I  venture  to  affirm,  that  the  present  discus- 
sion, touching  the  religion  of  Israel,  is  one  in  which  this  his- 
toric caution  and  skepticism  should  be  severely  exercised. 

However  that  may  be  in  the  view  of  others,  it  will  be 
agreed  by  all,  that  this  perilous  tendency  is  best  dimin- 
ished by  the  discipline  of  historical  study.  I  do  not 
forget  that  the  same  tendency  is  powerfully  antagonized  by 
Systematic  Theology,  formed  on  the  Confession  of  our  Church. 
I  trust  that  I  shall  never  be  found  disparaging  the  influence 
of  Systematic  Theology  i-n  forming  the  mind  of  our  ministry. 
Our  Church  has  reached  its  high  position  and  achieved  its 
great  work,  most  of  all  by  its  loyalty  to  revealed  truth  as 
expressed  in  the  forms  of  Systematic  Theology.  Above  all 
else,  our  ministers  have  been  theologians;  and  the  greatest 
and  most  widely  influential  literary  products  of  our  clergy 
have  been  theological  products.  But  I  am  not  disparaging 
Systematic  Theology  when  I  say  that  at  this  point  it  is  at  a 
disadvantage.  Unworthy  as  the  suspicion  is,  it  is  difficult 
for  Theology — just  because  allied  with  the  symbols  which  we 
receive  and  adopt — to  escape  the  suspicion,  that  in  antagon- 
izing the  conclusions  of  Biblical  criticism,  it  is  fighting  schol- 
arship with   the  weapons   of  ecclesiastical   authority.     That 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE.  39 

ecclesiastical  authority  may  be  properly  invoked  against  con- 
clusions, vitally  opposed  to  the  standards  of  the  Church,  is  a 
proposition  of  almost  axiomatic  force.  But  whoever  has 
observed  human  nature;  whoever,  especially,  is  aware  of  the 
sensitiveness,  that  scholarship  has  always  shown  under  the 
restraints  of  external  authority,  does  not  need  to  be  told 
that  the  result  of  invoking  authority  has  often  been  to  fix  in  the 
mind  the  very  belief,  which  it  was  intended  to  expel  from  it. 
Accordingly,  wise  men  have  always  counseled  that  ecclesias- 
tical authority  be  invoked  against  error  only  as  a  last  resort, 
and  in  a  desperate  crisis. 

While  Theology,  in  relation  to  the  subject  before  us,  suffers, 
in  our  own  Church,  from  its  peculiarly  intimate  connection 
with  authority,  History  is  at  no  such  disadvantage.  Its  influ- 
ence is  quite  as  conservative  as  the  influence  of  Theology.  But 
it  is  influential  rather  than  authoritative.  It  breathes  a  spirit; 
it  forms  a  habit  of  mind ;  it  calls  out  the  powers  of  the  mind 
to  genial  labor  on  the  very  subjects  upon  which  Biblical 
criticism  is  engaged ;  and  all  the  while  its  distinct  influence 
is  to  exalt  and  to  preserve  the  traditional  faith  of  the  Church. 

That  the  attention  of  students  for  the  ministry  is,  for  many 
years  to  come,  specially  to  be  directed  to  Biblical  studies,  no 
one  can  doubt  who  regards  attentively  the  signs  of  the  times. 
The  revision  of  our  version  of  the  Scriptures;  the  attempted 
reconstruction  of  the  History  of  Israel;  the  new  interest  in 
the  Semitic  languages,  and  the  new  study  of  Comparative 
Religion,  all  point  in  this  direction.  That  the  influence  of 
these  studies,  in  the  atmosphere  of  modern  doubt,  must  for 
the  time  be  to  unsettle  belief,  will  not  be  denied.      We  could 


40  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE. 

not,  if  we  would,  check  the  tendency  toward  these  studies  in 
the  Church.  We  would  not  if  we  could.  But  the  influence 
which,  if  unmingled  with  that  of  a  more  conservative  discip- 
line, they  must  exert,  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  to  pre- 
vent. On  this  ground,  I  plead  for  a  renewed  interest  in  the 
great  conservative  discipline  of  Church  History. 

Though  the  subject  is  by  no  means  exhausted,  I  must  turn 
away  from  the  relations  of  History  to  the  individual  disci- 
plines, in  order  to  consider  briefly  its  relations  to  the  theo- 
logical course  regarded  as  a  unit.  And  here  the  word,  which 
perhaps  best  describes  its  special  influence,  is  the  word  culture. 
A  marked  tendency  has,  within  a  few  years,  been  manifest  to 
contrast  the  discipline  of  the  intimate  and  detailed  knowledge 
gained  by  the  student  in  a  single  department,  with  the  disci- 
pline of  the  broader  knowledge  that  constitutes  the  substance 
of  a  liberal  education.  Though  the  word  does  not  describe 
it  with  absolute  accuracy,  we  may  well  adopt,  for  the  purpose 
of  this  discourse,  the  word  scientific  to  designate  the  new  train- 
ing, as  contrasted  with  the  older  or  liberal  training.  This 
scientific  training  we  must  regard  as  one  result  of  the  wide  em- 
ployment of  the  inductive  method.  The  employment  of  in- 
duction has  given  to  the  modern  world  a  strong  impulse  to- 
ward the  observation  and  classification  of  the  visible  universe  ; 
and  this,  in  turn,  has  resulted  in  the  extension  and  multipli- 
cation of  the  material  sciences  and  the  useful  arts.  It  is  the 
growing  strength  of  this  great  impulse,  communicated  to 
modern  Europe  and  America  largely  by  the  powerful  mind 
of  Francis  Bacon,  which  has  finally  succeeded  in  founding,  in 
connection  with  our  American  colleges,  special  schools  of  the 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE.  4 1 

material  sciences,  in  which  students  are  trained  for  special 
scientific  occupations.  As  the  subjection  of  the  visible  world 
to  the  use  of  man  becomes  more  nearly  thorough, — as,  in 
other  words,  the  material  sciences  are  multiplied  and  the  range 
of  each  is  extended, — these  schools  of  science  may  be  ex- 
pected to  multiply,  and  education  to  become  still  more 
special.  The  great  value  of  this  special  training  it  were  as 
idle  to  deny  as  it  would  be  to  deny  the  strength  of  the  modern 
tendency  to  promote  it. 

But  valuable  and  even  necessary  as  it  is,  the  training  of  the 
specialist  is  obviously  attended  by  the  danger,  that  its  imperi- 
ous demands  will  prove  an  effectual  bar  to  a  large  and  gen- 
erous culture.  The  fact  of  this  danger  is  already  forcing 
itself  upon  the  attention  of  conspicuous  and  influential  writers ; 
and  unless  we  are  mere  pessimists,  we  shall  easily  believe 
that  the  demand  will  at  no  distant  day  be  general  and  power- 
ful, that  our  scientific  schools  positively  borrow  a  larger 
liberalizing  element  from  the  collegiate  course  (of  which 
the  main  design  is  culture)  with  which  at  present  they  are 
only  crudely  affiliated. 

The  main  design  of  the  collegiate  course,  I  say,  is  culture. 
That  this  is  its  design  is  obvious  from  the  terms  "the  human- 
ities" and  "the  liberal  arts,"  which  are  associated  with  its 
honors  and  degrees.  The  educated  man,  whom  the  college 
seeks  to  send  forth  into  the  world,  is  a  man  disciplined  in  all 
his  faculties,  and  receptive  upon  every  side ;  a  man  of  the 
widest  intellectual  sympathies;  a  man  of  the  humanities;  a 
man,  in  short,  glowing  not  so  much  with  the  special  enthu- 
siasm of  a  special,  though  scientific  occupation,  but  glowing 


42  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE. 

with  "the  enthusiasm  of  humanity,"  imbued  with   the  spirit, 
and  aHve  to  the  possibiHties  of  the  entire  race. 

In  these  days,  in  view  of  the  strong  tendency  both  to 
specialize  and  to  secularize  education,  it  is  well  to  recall  the 
noble  history,  in  the  modern  world,  of  this  system  of  liberal 
training.  It  is  well  to  reinform  ourselves  of  that  continuous 
movement  through  the  centuries,  which,  under  the  conduct  of 
the  largest  minds  and  loftiest  spirits,  has,  in  our  own  land, 
culminated  in  the  colleges  which  have  so  largely  blessed  and 
honored  both  the  Church  and  State.  We  owe  much  indeed 
to  the  growth  of  material  science  under  the  nurture  of  the  in- 
ductive philosophy.  But  the  debt  of  the  world  to  the  educa- 
tion which  survives  in  our  colleges,  is  far  larger  and  far  more 
profound.  .  Let  us  mention,  always  with  becoming  gratitude, 
the  trivium  and  quadnviuin,  which  Alcuin  taught  in  the  palace 
school  of  Charles  the  Great;  and  which  Scotus  Erigena  taught 
in  the  Court  of  Charles  the  Bald  in  France,  and  in  the  new 
school  founded  by  Alfred,  at  Oxford,  in  England.  It  was  the 
trivium  and  qiiadj^iviwn,  that  enabled  the  European  mind,  in 
the  scholastic  age,  to  assimilate  and  to  employ  on  the  great 
problems  of  Theology,  the  Greek  philosophy;  and,  in  the  age 
of  the  Renaissance,  to  assimilate  and  employ  the  Greek  and 
the  Latin  literatures.  And  it  was  the  same  culture,  his- 
torically developed,  that  made  the  revival  of  letters  the 
chief  providential  agency  in  the  great  Reformation  of  religion. 
The  Churches  of  the  Reformation  were  not  slow  in  learn- 
ing the  great  lesson  thus  clearly  taught  by  History.  Aside 
from  the  body  of  the  Christian  truth,  this  training  in  the 
liberal  arts, — snatched  by  Charles    in  Italy   from  the   wreck 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE.  43 

of  the  Lombard  wars  then  ah-eady  past,  and  saved  by  Alcuin 
in  England  from  the  wreck  of  the  Danish  invasions  then  still 
in  the  future,— was  believed  by  the  Reformed  Churches  to 
be  the  largest  gift  of  the  Mediaeval  clergy  to  the  clergy  of 
modern  Christendom.  Nor,  in  their  judgment,  was  its 
highest  value  to  be  sought  so  much  in  the  positive  knowledge 
which  it  imparts,  as  in  the  catholic  sympathies  and  the  large 
and  many-sided  intellectual  life,  of  which  it  is  the  parent. 

Thus  it  was,  that  when  the  Reformed  Churches  began  their 
conflict — which  may  God  prosper— for  the  Christian  conquest 
of  a  new  continent,  the  college  of  the  liberal  arts  was,  at  once 
and  by  unspeakable  self-sacrifice,  established.  It  is  thus  a 
historical  fact  of  the  first  importance,  that  the  colleges  of  the 
land  owe  their  existence,  more  than  to  any  other  single  cause, 
to  the  absolute  need  felt  by  the  Reformed  Churches  of  a  min- 
istry broadly  educated,  catholic  in  sympathy,  and  widely  re- 
ceptive in  intellectual  habit.  The  need  of  such  a  ministry  was 
at  no  period  greater  than  it  is  to-day ;  and  in  no  place  has  it 
been  more  imperative  than  it  is  in  our  own  country.  For,  if 
the  tendency  to  specialized  and  scientific  education  is  the 
strong  and  general  tendency  which  I  have  asserted  it  to  be, 
the  life  of  the  nation  will  rapidly  degenerate  unless  there  is 
also  in  the  state  a  large  and  influential  class,  formed  by  a 
culture  broader  and  more  humane  than  that  of  the  scientific 
school.  When,  to  this  consideration,  is  added  the  materializ- 
ing influence  exerted  by  our  swift  conquest  of  nature, 
by  the  resulting  unparalleled  acquisition  of  wealth,  and 
by  the  growing  stream  of  immigration,  the  impulse  of  which 
is  simply  a  sense  of  material  want  and  a  hope  of  material 


44  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE. 

gain — how  clear  it  is,  that,  if  our  civilization  is  to  be  rescued 
from  the  destruction  which  must  follow  an  unduly  materialistic 
habit  of  life,  the  intellectual  life  of  the  Christian  ministry  of 
the  land  must  be  no  less  wide  and  catholic  than  was  that  of 
the  Fathers.  I  do  not  say,  for  I  do  not  believe,  that  that 
depth  has  yet  been  reached^;  but  I  do  say  that  there  are  power- 
ful tendencies  in  our  America  which,  if  unchecked  by 
the  influence  of  a  broad,  spiritual,  and  Christian  culture, 
will  carry  us  downward  with  frightful  speed  to  the  condition 
of  Roman  society  in  its  decline — a  condition  in  the  modern 
world,  which  is  well  portrayed  in  the  most  mournful  and  most 
bitter  of  all  the  sonnets  of  Wordsworth : 

"  We  must  run  glittering  like  a  brook 
In  the  open  sunshine,  or  we  are  unblest; 
The  wealthiest  man  among  us  is  the  best. 
No  grandeur  now  in  nature  or  in  book 
Delights  us.     Ripine,  avarice,  expense — 
This  is  idolatry  ;  and  these  we  adore. 
Plain  living  and  high   thinking  are  no  more. 
The  homely  beauty  of  the  good  old  cause 
Is  gone;  our  peace,  our  fearful  innocence. 
And  pure  religion  breathing  household  laws." 

Great,  therefore,  is  the  debt  of  the  nation  and  of  the 
Church  to  the  Christian  college,  for  that  broad  and  humane 
culture,  which,  just  because  it  awakens  the  "enthusiasm  of 
humanity,"  is  the  choicest  intellectual  endowment  of  our 
ministry. 

The  spirit  of  this  culture,  I  need  n6t  say,  must  be  manifest 
not  only  in  the  college,  but  in  the  professional  school,  if 
its  fruit  is  to  be  revealed  in  the  professional  life  of  the 
the  minister.      It   must  not  only  survive  the  college  course, 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    DISCIPLINE.  45 

but,  as  it  reappears  in  the  school  of  Divinity,  must  be  instinct 
with    a    stronger    Hfe.       If   a    theological    disciphne    can    be 
found  which  will  reinvigorate  this  spirit,  that  discipline  must 
be  given  no  subordinate  place  in  the  theological  course.    Such 
a  discipline  is  the  History,  whose  organizing  idea  I  have  tried 
to  unfold,  and  whose  claim  to  a  place  among  the  sciences  I 
have  tried  to  defend.      It  is  the  highest  merit  of  History  as  a 
discipline  that  it  is  the  least  special  of  all  the  departments. 
As  a  science,  it  is  scientia  scientiarum  ;  as  an  art,  it  is  ars  artiuni. 
"If  it  were  desirable,"  it  has  well  been  said,   "to  bring  the 
whole  encyclopaedia  of  human  knowledge  under  a  single  term, 
certainly  History  would  be   chosen  as  the  most  comprehen- 
sive and  elastic."     It  subjects  the  student  to  a  training  the 
largest  and  most  humane.      The  spirit  of  History  is  the  spirit 
which  breathes  from,  perhaps,  the  noblest  line  of  Latin  literature: 
Hiimamis  sum;  Jmmani  nihil  a  me  alienwnputo,  and  which  finds 
a    far  loftier   expression    in   the  words   of  Paul:    "There   is 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is   neither  bond  nor  free,  there 
is  neither  male  nor  female  ;  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus." 
It  is,  above  all,  as  a  student  of  History  that  the  student  of 
Theology  becomes  most  profoundly  conscious  of  the  unity 
of  the  race.      More   distinctly  than  any    other    discipline,    it 
brings  the  student  into  sympathetic  converse  with  the  whole 
family  of  man.      Its  theme  is  the  Hte  of  humanity,   and  its 
literature  is  the  libraries  of  the  world.      The  culture  which  it 
legitimates  and   the  sympathy  which  it  breathes  are  no  sub- 
ordinate elements  of  the  training  and   the  spirit,  needed  by 
the  preacher  of  the  one  universal  and  ultimate  gospel.     They 
are  a  culture  and  a  spirit  which,  on  the  one  hand,  will  permit 


46  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    MODE   OF    THE    GOSPEL. 

him  to  "call  no  man  abandoned;"  and  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  will  permit  him,  with  the  deepest  reverence,  and  divest- 
ing them  of  all  pantheistic  significance,  to  repeat  as  his  own 
the  words : 

"  I  am  owner  of  the  sphere, 

Of  the  seven  stars  and  the  solar  year. 

Of  Caesar's  hand  and  Plato's  brain, 

Of  Lord  Christ's  heart  and  Shakespeare's  strain." 

(ill.)    CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    MODE    OF    THE    GOSPEL. 

But  History  is  not  only  a  science,  and  a  science  entitled  by 
its  peculiar  culture  of  the  student  to  a  lofty  position  among 
the  theological  disciplines.  Its  highest  claim  upon  the  can- 
didate for  the  sacred  ministry  will  come  into  view,  only  as  we 
follow  him  into  the  distinctive  work  of  his  sacred  calling.  I 
compelled  to  treat  this  last  and,  practically,  most  impor- 
tant of  the  related  subjects  of  this  discourse,  in  a  summary 
manner.  I  state,  however,  the  exact  relation  of  Church 
History  to  the  work  of  the  preacher,  when  I  say  that  Church 
History  is  a  mode  of  the  gospd,  and  add  that  it  is  inferior 
to  no  other  mode  as  a  Jwuiiletical  mode  of  the  gospel. 

It  is  a  distinction  of  Christianity,  among  the  religions  of 
the  world,  that,  while  its  substance  is  one,  its  largeness  and 
vitality  enable  it  to  exist  in  many  literary  forms.  To  assure 
ourselves  that  this  is  true,  we  need  go  no  further  than  to 
the  written  Word  itself.  It  is  the  one  gospel  of  the  grace  of 
God  that  is  present  in  the  lyrics  of  the  Psalter,  in  the  recorded 
visions  of  the  prophets,  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  the 
History  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  in  the  familiar  and  horta- 
tory letters  and    addresses    of  the  Apostles  to   the  several 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS   A   MODE   OF   THE    GOSPEL.  4? 

churches,  and  in  the  profound  theological  and  ethical  treatise 
addressed    by  the   Apostle   Paul  to   the   Church   at   Rome. 
These  are  consubstantial,  in  that  the  truth  which  all  embody 
and  express  is  the  one  truth  revealed  by  God  for  the  salvation 
of  men.      But,  in  each  case,  the  truth  reveals  itself  in  a  new 
literary  mode.     I  do   not  stop  to  inquire  whether  it  was  the 
recognition  of  this  fact  that  gave  form  to  the  theological  sem- 
inaries of  our  Church ;  but  content  myself  with  the  statement, 
that  the  course  of  study  in  these  seminaries  would  not  have 
been  different,  had  this  been  made  the  principle  of  its  organi- 
zation.   For  the  several  departments  of  the  course  do  not  differ 
in  the  subjects  brought  under  review,  but  in  the  point  of  view 
from  which  the  subjects  are  regarded,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
in  the  modes  in  which  they  are  presented.     The  subject,  in- 
deed, is  one.     It  is  the  truth,  as  I  have  said,  which  has  been 
revealed  by  God  for  man's  salvation.     This  truth,  it  is  the 
function  of  the  Chairs  of  Sacred  Literature,  by  means  of  textual 
and  literary  criticism  and  exegesis,  to  unfold.      The  truth  thus 
unfolded.  Systematic  Theology,  after  associating  it  with  the 
a  priori  elements   which   the    revealed    truth    itself  implies, 
classifies  and  re-presents  in  an  articulated  body  of  Divinity. 
I  should  do  injustice  to  the  important  department  of  Apolo- 
getics were  I  to  say  that  it  deals  only  with  the  defense  of 
Christianity  as  distinct  from  Christianity  itself.     Apologetics, 
to  employ  the  fine  statement  of  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  "arrays 
the  whole  contents  and  substance  of  the  Christian  faith  for 
defense    and    for    defensive    assault."      The    department    of 
Church  Polity  exhibits  this  same,  truth,  as  it  organizes  into  a 
visible  society  those  whom  it  calls  out  from  the  race.    Church 


48  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    MODE    OF    THE    GOSPEL. 

History  is  an  exhibition  of  this  same  truth,  in  its  predestined 
activity,  determining  the  life  of  the  Church  and  modifying  the 
hfe  of  the  world.  And  the  department  of  Sacred  Rhetoric 
seizes  the  truth,  in  all  the  forms  into  which  it  has  been  wrought 
by  the  other  disciplines,  and  reorganizes  them  in  order  to 
form  the  ultimate  literary  product  of  the  pulpit — the  sacred 
discourse. 

If  I  have  correctly  described  the  Theological  course,  it 
follows  that  Church  History  is  the  gospel  itself ;  the  gospel 
in  a  historical  as  distinguished  from  a  theological,  or  apolo- 
getic, or  Biblical  mode.  It  is  the  gospel  as  it  exhibits  itself 
in  the  life  of  the  Church  and  the  world.  If  this  is  tr;ie,  it 
is  no  less  a  proper  subject  of  pulpit  discourse  than  is  Christian 
doctrine.  If  the  preacher  is  in  the  line  of  his  duty  when, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  art  of  sacred  discourse,  he  con- 
structs the  doctrinal,  or  expository,  or  ecclesiastical  sermon, 
he  does  not  step  beyond  the  line  when  he  constructs  and 
delivers  the  historical  sermon.  Indeed,  the  historical  sermon 
possesses  the  great  merit  of  presenting  the  gospel  as  it  is 
revealed  in  actual  life  ;  and  it  possesses  the  further  merit  of  a 
most  striking  congruity  with  Revelation  itself.  For  the  Word 
of  God  is  predominantly  History,  even  when  Prophecy  is  not 
regarded  as  History;  and  Prophecy  is  properly  regarded  as 
the  divinely  inspired  History  of  the  future. 

I  limit  my  remarks,  touching  the  relations  of  Church  His- 
tory to  the  work  of  the  preacher,  to  this  single  subject,  be- 
cause I  believe  that  the  pulpit  of  our  Church  has  denied 
itself  the  exercise  of  an  important  power  by  its  failure  to 
employ  largely  this  mode  of  gospel  discourse.  I  plead, 
therefore,  not  only  in  behalf  of  a  larger  infusion  of  the  his- 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    MODE   OF    THE   GOSPEL.  49 

torical  element  in  the  doctrinal  and  expository  sermon ;  but 
in  behalf,  also,  of  the  sermon  of  which  the  Historical  is  the 
dominant  element;  of  the  sermon  in  which  the  gospel 
is  held  forth,  as  it  appears  in  the  lives  of  men  and  women, 
whose  biographies  are  History.  Did  time  permit  me  tO 
make  this  plea  in  detail,  I  would  not  content  myself  with  the 
mere  justification  of  the  historical  discourse,  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  a  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  For  it  possesses  many 
special  and  important  elements  of  homiletical  value,  some  of 
which  I  can  indicate  only  in  single  sentences.  Of  these, 
perhaps  the  most  obvious  is  the  catholic  and  irenic  character 
which  the  element  of  History  gives  to  the  sermon.  More- 
over, it  is  a  well-recognized  law  of  discourse,  that  the  impact 
of  truth  concretely  stated  is  far  more  powerful  than  tlie  impact 
of  the  same  truth  when  stated  in  abstract  terms ;  and  if  this 
is  true  of  every  form  of  discourse,  it  is  true  especially  of  the 
Christian  sermon,  of  which  the  end  is  to  arouse  the  will  to 
vigorous  evangelical  action.  Nor  is  this  all.  A  study  of  the 
sermon  as  a  literary  product  will  reveal  the  fact  that  it  is  not 
merely  a  lecture  and  not  merely  an  oration.  It  combines  in 
itself  both  the  didactic  and  the  oratorical  elements.  The 
preacher  must  not  only  present  the  truth  clearly ;  he  must 
present  it  also  dynamically.  The  sermon  is  a  didactic  oration : 
and  a  moment's  reflection  will  convince  us  that  History,  just 
because  it  exhibits  the  living  and  dramatic  movement  of  the 
truth,  is  the  mode  of  the  gospel,  which  most  naturally  yields 
itself  to  the  construction  of  such  a  discourse.  It  is  also  true, 
that  the  doctrines,  both  of  Biblical  and  of  Systematic  Theol- 
ogy, derive,  from  their  careers  in  the  life  of  the  Church  as 
narrated  by  Church  History,  their  m.ost  striking  confirmation; 


50  CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    MODE   OF    THE    GOSPEL. 

confirmation,  indeed,  of  the  very  kind  which  the  sacred  orator 
can  most  favorably  employ.  And,  finally,  an  individual  doc- 
trine can  not  be  expounded  more  forcibly  in  an  oratorical 
manner,  than  in  closest  association  with  the  historical  per- 
sonage who  illustrated  or  defended  it;  so  that  even  when  the 
sermon  is  substantially  theological,  it  may  well  be  formally 
historical.  The  mystery  of  the  Trinity  can  not  be  presented 
in  a  form  more  profoundly  interesting  than  in  association  with 
the  heroic  life  of  Athanasius  the  Great.  And  what  is  true 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  associated  with  Athanasius, 
is  true  of  the  doctrines  of  the  sovereignty  of  God  and  of  justi- 
fication by  faith,  as  associated  with  the  lives  and  work  of  John 
Calvin  and  of  Martin  Luther. 

The  time  is  not  distant,  let  us  hope,  when,  in  the  pulpits  of 
our  Church,  the  sermon  of  History  will  be  given  a  place  side 
by  side  with  the  sermon  of  Theology  and  the  sermon  of  Expo- 
sition. It  is  true,  that  History  can  never  displace,  or  be  sub- 
stituted for  School  Divinity.  Whoever  has  attentively  read  the 
History  of  the  development  of  Systematic  Theology,  from 
John  of  Damascus  onward,  through  the  labors  of  the  noble 
succession  of  great  minds  and  lofty  spirits  of  the  Mediaeval 
Church,  the  Master  of  the  Sentences,  Anselm  of  Canter- 
bury, the  Angel  of  the  Schools,  and  John  Wessel;  through 
the  Loci  Connimncs  of  Melancthon  and  the  Institutes  of  Cal- 
vin at  the  Reformation;  and,  finally,  through  the  abundant 
discussions  and  systems  and  symbols  from  the  Reformation 
to  our  own  day — must  have  reached  the  conclusion,  that  Chris- 
tianity being  what  it  is,  and  the  human  mind  being  what  it 
is,  the  system  of  Christian  Doctrine,  organized  by  the  laws  of 
thought,   is  an  inevitable  product.     The  confessions  of  the 


CHURCH    HISTORY    AS    A    MODE   OF   THE    GOSPEL.  $1 

Christian  Church  are,  without  exception,  theological  confes- 
sions; and  it  is  safe  to  predict  that,  whatever  may  be  the 
Christian  confessions  of  the  future,  they  will  be  no  less  sys- 
tematic in  form  than  those  of  the  past  have  been.    Whenever 
Christian  faith  has  jbeen  strong,  the  tendency  to  systematize 
Christian  truth  has  been  correspondingly  powerful.  I  am  not  agi- 
tated by  the  fear,  therefore,  which  has  of  late  been  expressed, 
that  the  discipline  of  Systematic  Theology  will,  in  any  degree, 
lose  its  power  to  awaken  the  interest,  or  its  influence  in  giving 
form,  to  the  preaching  of  the  ministry.      Such  a  loss  would 
be    a    calamity,    indeed;     for    it    would     be    the    result    and 
token    of    a    diminished    faith    in     Christianity    itself.       But 
History  is  a  mode  of  the  gospel  as  really  as  is  Systematic 
Theology.      For  that  reason  History  should  be  given  a  place; 
as,  on  the  ground  of  its  special  homiletical  value,  it  should  be 
given  a  prominent  place  in  Christian  preaching.     Were  this 
place  given  to   History  in  the  pulpits  of  our  churches— were 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  as  it  reveals  itself  in  the  recorded 
life  of  the  Church,  to  become  frequent  and  general — the  power 
which  the  Church  derives  from  the  labors  of  the  pulpit  would 
be   greatly  multiplied.      For  the   History   of  Christianity  is, 
after  all,  both  its  most  moving  presentation  and  its  most  con- 
vincing argument.      I  indulge  the  hope  that  the  students  of 
this   Seminary  will   not   regard    History  as   a  science   and   a 
discipline   only;  as,   therefore,    only  distantly  related  to  the 
great  work  of  preaching  the  Gospel.    Remembering  the  lofty 
passage  in  the  inspired  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  in  which  the 
gospel  of  faith  is  proclaimed  in  the   lives  of  those  who,  in  a 
less  favored  age,  lived  and  died   in  trust  of  God,    they  will 
need   no  further  justification,   as  they  find   and   preach   the 


52  CHURCH    HISTORY   AS    A    MODE   OF    THE   GOSPEL. 

gospel  of  God's  redeeming  grace  in  the  History  of  the  fathers, 
and  martyrs,  and  confessors,  and  reformers  of  the  Church  of 
Christ;  who,  through  faith,  "subdued  kingdoms  and  wrought 
righteousness,  and  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy." 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  unfold  the  idea  of  Church  His- 
tory, and  so  to  justify  its  claim  to  a  high  place  among  the 
theological  sciences ;  to  defend  it  in  claiming  a  chair  second 
to  that  of  no  other  discipline  of  the  theological  school ;  and 
finally,  by  presenting  it  as  a  mode  of  the  gospel,  to  state  the 
intimate  relation  which  it  sustains  to  the  work  of  the  sacred 
ministry.  Profoundly  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  views 
which  it  has  been  the  design  of  this  address  to  explain  and 
defend,  I  regard  the  work  to  which  you  have  summoned  me 
as  a  work  of  the  highest  dignity  and  of  the  first  importance. 
It  is  fitting,  therefore,  that  I  close  as  I  began ;  with  a  grateful 
expression-  of  my  sense  of  the  high  honor  you  have  done  me, 
in  making  the  discipline  of  Church  History  my  special  trust. 
But  the  work  is  no  less  difficult  than  it  is  honorable  and  im- 
portant. The  difficulty  of  the  work  never  appeared  so  great 
to  me  as  it  appears  to-day,  at  the  close  of  a  year  of  laborious 
but  delightful  service.  But,  having  obeyed  what  I  believe  to 
have  been  the  call  of  God  to  engage  in  labor,  the  end  of 
which  is  to  display  the  power  and  glory  of  his  kingdom  of 
grace,  it  is  my  duty  and  privilege  confidently  to  invoke  his 
sufficient  aid.  I  invoke  it,  in  faith  of  the  truth — revealed  in 
his  Word  and  confirmed  by  the  History  of  his  Church — that 
when  He  calls  his  servants  to  work  too  great  to  be  performed 
in  their  unaided  strength  and  wisdom,  He  supplements  their 
activity  by  his  own,  to  the  end  that  no  labor  in  Him  may  be 
in  vain. 


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J 

. 

.A'W  '1 

f) 

